We had a busy year in 2017. Here are some of our high points: Year in recap:
We played 15 shows
We released our debut LP, into the desert
We released our debut music video, "No One Like You".
We did a livestream video concert where we played some of our favorite covers at Rock Canyon Studios.
We lost Nate. But we now have the talented Dean.
We started offering lighting at our mobile party gigs
We have had two professional photo shoots.
We auditioned and became part of the Club 90 rotation
We reintroduced keys into our set.
We've come a long way since we started in 2013, and it's been fun every step of the way. We put out a lot of media at the beginning of the year, but we were devastated once we lost Nate. It took a bit to get the wheels turning again with our new guitarist Dean, but now we're better than ever, ready to tackle 2018.
What's on the horizon?
We've dedicated the past year and a half to compiling a great cover set-list, and to building our brand as a top notch cover band. While we're going to continue learning more covers, we're going to focus on writing more original content, and defining our sound. We are also going to be focusing on increasing keyboard presence and back up vocals. Expect great things!
We were approached by Howard a few months ago to play at his annual YPO Gold Christmas party. We've played a few events for him, so we were eager to play another one.
This was a formal event, where the participants were wearing tuxedos. We were told to wear formal/casual. We decided to be matching, so we all wore black shirts, black pants, black shoes, and red ties. Aaron joked that we looked like the mafia. I countered that black is sleek, white shirts would make us look like we're going to church, and red is a Christmas color.
A picture I took while I had a break
This cabin was kind of hard to find on GPS, but we all made it up there. It was an elegant and charming cabin that sat on top of a big valley, with a beautiful view. We were also fortunate enough not to have any snow while driving there.
This was our third time playing live with Dean, and the first time we played a lot of these songs. We were hired to play for 5 hours, so we practiced all of our material, just in case. In the past, we've mostly been ambiance/background music for Howard's parties, but this time, we had people dancing, so we mostly stuck with our dance songs, and mostly oldies and 80's stuff.
We were fed dinner, and it was fantastic! Several types of gourmet salads, fish, steak, potatoes, and delicious deserts!
One of the GoPro sills
I'm really glad that we started doing lighting at our shows, because we were on the porch, and there were only a couple of dim lanterns out there. I was excited because I had purchased a third light stand, to try and get a "halo" effect by placing it behind us. I wasn't expecting there to be a dance floor, so I didn't bring my derby disco lights.
For the past 40 shows, we've made it a priority to have at least one photo from each show. This night was tricky, because usually we have friends or family come and take pictures of us. I set up my GoPro to get stills, and Mark and I took some photos while we had large breaks on songs.
Overall, it was a great event and we had a lot of fun.
We played Club 90 11/3-11/4. Like always, it was awesome! There was a good turnout, and lots of people were dancing. This gig was special because it's the first time we integrated keyboards since we've recruited Mark. That means I got to play bass! It was pretty fun.
Nate drove across the country to fill in for Dean, because Dean was attending a wedding on the East Coast. It was good to see Nate again and perform with him. He still had his chops and it's like we never had a 5 month break playing with him. Club 90 has upgraded their lighting; and it was pretty awesome!
We live streamed both shows; both trying to capture the crowd and the band. We had quite a bit of interaction on them. The audio quality isn't the best, so I took them down afterwards, but it's kinda fun; it allows our international audience be part of the show.
Enjoy some of my favorite pics from the show!
Special thanks to Kirsten Fager, who always takes such amazing photos!
Last year, we had a great time playing at a Halloween house party in Sandy. This year, Mark and Dean were out of town, and we weren't able to play the party as a band when they requested. Aaron and I offered DJ services for their party and they accepted. In addition to playing music, and lighting, we did karaoke as well.
Aaron dressed up as Link from the Zelda game, and I dressed up as a lion. (My wife and I were the Lion and the Lamb)
We had a good time. Although, lots of people were dancing and singing, this crowd reacted better when we played as a full live band. They want us back next year, but the whole band. We also met some people at the party who are looking for a band for upcoming parties.
We had such a success, we decided that we might do more DJ gigs when they present themselves.
Aaron with the whole sound and lighting rig
Me with the whole rig.
The backyard where we played last year
They had some delicious food, including this head made of prosciutto
Once upon a time, I used to play guitar and keyboard in the band. Then one day, I just got sick of hauling my keyboard and guitar rig to every rehearsal and gig. Our show at Wasatch Musician was the last time I played keys at a gig. It helped give a unique edge to some songs, by using guitars to fill in keyboard parts. Such as the beginning part of "Don't Stop Believing". We're pretty happy with how it turned out.
While we were satisfied with filling in the keyboard parts with two guitars, every once in a while we were reminiscent of how awesome keyboards were in certain parts. We decided against getting a full-time keyboardist in the band, because having more than 4 instruments in a rock band, clutters the sound.
Recently, we've been playing a lot of modern pop and 80's songs, and Mark has decided to step up and start playing keys. While Mark is a fantastic bassist, he identifies more as keyboardist. So I'll be doing bass, while Mark plays keyboard on some songs.
We had the opportunity to play at a wedding reception at the popular museum, The Leonardo. We were not only excited to be playing at one of the nicest venues in Salt Lake City, but the museum's Event Planner said that if she liked us, she'd suggest us for future weddings and events at the museum.
Preparation
Dean really stepped up for this gig. He's still getting up to speed, and he had to learn a lot of material for this gig, and he nailed it! While, we knew all the songs, it was essential to practice with Dean to be able to jive with him.
We learned a few new wedding appropriate songs. The bride and groom requested that we play "I Was Made For Loving You" by Tori Kelly feat. Ed Sheeran. We made an acoustic version of "All of Me" by John Legend for slow dancing. Also some other love themed dance songs, "Brass in Pocket" by Pretenders, "Lights" by Journey, "Sugar" by Maroon 5, and "Some Kind of Wonderful" by Grand Funk Railroad.
We got the idea of incorporating lights into our shows. Luckily t
here's dozens of videos on YouTube, and my friend Tyler gave me lots of advice and lent me some lights. I'll discuss more details about what we did for lighting in another blog post. But, the lighting was essential to our success.
The Show
Congrats to Kristy & Steve!
The Leonardo has a large event center on the top floor. We setup early in the afternoon, because the room was going to be used for the actual ceremony as well as the reception. Aaron's cousins, the Ohumukini Twins, offered to be our sound engineers and they did a fantastic job. We were given the entire auditorium as our "green room". A room were we could put our cases, and eat our delicious catered spaghetti meal.
The audience was very kind, lively, and receptive. It was one of the most energetic crowds we've performed to. It was awesome to see all the colorful lights swirling over all of them. One of the guests asked to sing a Backstreet Boys song. The whole crowd loved it!
The bride and groom afterward shook our hands and told us that they loved us.
Conclusion
It was an awesome show, we had fun, the guests had fun, and the event coordinator, Emily said that we definitely made her list for future performances. We also were able to get a 5-star review on GigSalad! Thanks to Aaron's mom, Kirsten for taking some awesome pictures! More of them here.
This was our second time performing at the Utah State Fair; we previously played there in 2015. Last time was our last show with Ryan, the previous bassist. This year was Dean's first show with us. He's only been living in Salt Lake for 3 months, and he's already playing his first gig!
Growing up, one of my neighbors played at the State Fair every year, and he made it sound like it was the dream gig; the most high profile gig that any musician could aspire to get.
With that perception in mind, we were disappointed in 2015. It was on a Wednesday night at 9pm, and we were performing to a nearly empty crowd. We were playing for free. Parking was
$10 for each vehicle, and we had to pay for our family members. And we received no food vouchers. It felt like pay-to-play, as we lost money playing that show.
This time around, it was a little better. We got paid, a modest amount. Almost enough to cover the cost of parking, and bringing in family members. Although it was a weekend, and there were quite a few people who watched us, it still wasn't a great turn-out. Probably because of the late hour, and Saturday is always busier than a Friday.
We were only given one delivery pass, so we met in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store, and crammed as much equipment as we could into Aaron's truck. The rest of us carried the rest of our gear from the parking lot. We got to the stage early, so we wandered a bit until it was our turn to get setup. The band before us was a Beatles Tribute band, made up of some older gentleman with some really cool hippie apparel. While they put on a great show and had every right to feel like a rockstar afterwards, they immediately left the stage to go mingle with friends and family, leaving all their gear on stage. We're only given 30 minutes for them to take down, for us to setup, and soundcheck. Which isn't much time at all. After a few minutes, it was apparent that taking their equipment down was the furthest thing from their mind. I had to wade through the adoring fans and ask each one of them individually to please take their gear off the stage. They seemed a little annoyed, but they did it. I think it was lack of gigging experience, not blatant rudeness.
Their delayed take down, made our setup a little more frantic, but we were able to get started and finish on time. I recorded a FB Livestream on my phone on a tripod. It turned out better than expected. We had quite a few viewers, and interactions. We also got some awesome pictures.
Overall, it was a good show. It was a good motivator for Dean to have a gig to get ready for. Mark assured us that Saturday during the day is much better. It still rubs me the wrong way how stringent they are with performers, they ask you to play for free or at a reduced rate, and then they try to get all the money they can out of you.
We'd
like to officially welcome Dean Gallagher to our line-up! He not only brings
his refined guitar skills to the band, but an amazing voice as well! He's
talented, easy-going, and a lot of fun to work with. Dean is new to the area,
originally from Philadelphia, where he was part of lots bands. We are excited
for our debut performance with him tomorrow at the Utah State Fair, on the
Xfinity stage, at 9pm.
Salt Lake City's popular magazine, "City Weekly", has a "Best of Utah" competition every year for fans to support their favorite local businesses. The winner gets featured in the magazine, a plaque, and some street cred in our electronic press kit! There's an entry for best band and we need your help TO VOTE Eighth Day to be the best band for 2017! This is the year that we've released our debut album, music video, and have played at some of the best venues in town!
How to vote?
It's simple, go here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BOU17, and select at least three local businesses, and on page 4, make sure you select Eighth Day as your favorite band!
Page 4
The field where you vote for us!
Who else can I vote for? I don't know 3 local businesses...
If you need help for knowing what other two local businesses to vote for, we recommend that for best music festival, that you select #utahMusicFest, and best visual artist, and that you vote for my uncle, John Hughes.
Before Nate left, we wanted to shoot a music video of one of the tracks from our newly released album. We let Nate choose the song, and we were surprised when he chose this one. He did so because he liked the positive message that it conveys. We also let him choose the spot where to film it. He chose Delle, Utah, a desert ghost town, with literally nothing but a gas station and an abandoned school bus. We ended up choosing Raji Barbir of TinyComet films to shoot our music video. We also hired my co-worker Mike to do some aerial drone footage. We are extremely pleased with the end result. The release turned out better than expected. We got over 8,000 FB views of the release weekend, and over 300 YouTube views. We've concentrated the majority of our efforts onto Facebook, trying to attract new fans. This music video has been the most effective avenue to gain new likes on our Facebook. This was a milestone achievement, and we'd like to thank everyone who was part of the process and who has supported us.
You can view the music video below on YouTube or Facebook (in 4k HD quality!):
We just recently released our debut LP album, "Into the Desert". It's available on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and Bandcamp to stream and purchase. While having it digititally distributed is the modern way to release an album, there's something satisfying about having an old-school printed album. It makes the project feel more tangible. I'm proud with how the artwork turned out. I used some of the photos that my co-worker Michael Romero took at our music video shoot, in the Tooele desert. The music video is going to be released August 23, and it is going to be epic!
Our song "Hassle" from our new album, will be featured on DJ Suzy's "IMP Indie Mania" show today! Tune in at 3pm MST. http://www.spreaker.com/user/impradio. After the show, it will be syndicated to a vast number of FM & Online Radio Stations! See you there!!
Our track "Breaking Free" was featured on http://EmergingIndieBands.com! Thanks to Tim for writing this article. Interesting
perspective for sure, we've never thought of our music as Nashville Country…
Check out their website and give them some love.
Releasing an album is one of the most rewarding milestones as a band. It's breathing life into the songs that you spent so much time carefully crafting. It's seeing the fruits of your labor after all that time and money spent tracking in the studio. It's a tangible piece of art that you can proudly share with the world. While artists get a personal sense of gratification, album release time is the time to promote and build hype.
This was our first professionally recorded album as a band. For us, we've been in the studio for almost 2.5 years, March 2015 - August 2017. We were distraught when we learned that Nate would be leaving before the album would be finished. It didn't seem fitting to not do something to celebrate this album's release, but we didn't want to train a new guitarist and wait for them to get up to speed. This album was long overdue. So we did a FB livestream.
I created a slideshow of pictures of all the events that we've had as a band, whether it was practice, gigs, or professional studio pictures. I synced the slideshow to each of the songs on the album. Our friend Victor Gamble interviewed us, and asked us songs about each song on the album.
It would have been cool to do all this live, but I don't have the experience, nor the equipment, so we pre-recorded this, edited the video, and streamed the final video. This way, I could spam all the groups I'm part of by sharing the video. The livestream seemed to go smoothly, but the rendered saved video looks like a bunch of jumbled puzzle pieces. So I reuploaded the video below. We were pretty happy with the stats, over 1700 views.
Thank you to everyone who watched! Thank you to Vic for interviewing us!
You can download the album and find out more on our website!
http://eighthDaySlc.com
It was March 2015, and we were doing really well as a band. We had just released our Starlit Horizons, EP and had been receiving good feedback from it. We were trying to play as many shows as we could to promote our original stuff. Our songs we wrote to be full, energetic, have anthem-like choruses, raging guitar solos, lots of crash cymbals, and harmonic guitars.
Allison's Scandalous Dress
We were invited to play BYU's Restaurant/Venue, "The Wall", part of their semi-annual Battle of the Bands. This was our first time playing in Provo, and we were stoked to be reaching a new audience!
We scoped the competition beforehand by looking at their social media to gauge our chances of winning. There were some good bands playing, and we were lucky to be sharing the stage with such talent.
I probably most-likely overestimated how good we were, at least at live performance. In theory, we had one of the larger followings, probably the best looking web presence (my opinion isn't biased by the fact that I do all of our media, I promise), and our songs had probably the most complexity as far as musicianship was concerned.
Us old geezers at the Wall with our stage banner!
We were pretty stoked, brought all our new stage banner, our fans, friends, and family and we were ready to rock! The first offsetting thing was that we were one of the last performers, and people
looked like they were ready for this event to be over. Everybody was sitting, and it was clear that they weren't going to engage in our high-energy music. Next was the sound guy, he insisted that
we didn't need a sound check. The guitars were so loud and overpowering. It was a small venue, and it wasn't enjoyable to listen to us. The sound guy didn't adjust any level on his mixing board during our whole set. It threw off our mojo every time we'd look out at the empty-eyed, reaction-less audience. (Besides my wife and sister who were jumping up and down by the stage.)
We got our score card back from the judges, and we placed dead last. Most of the comments were, that they couldn't hear us over the overbearing guitar.
Then we got this awesome press in some music blog of one of the concert goers.
It's true, Ryan the bassist at the time was in his early 30's. The rest of us were college-aged; in our early 20's. I just turned 24. I thought that was a weird comment coming from someone attending BYU. Men at BYU go on missions and then begin college at age 21. I'm 6'5", and that might make me look older.
Allison was wearing a modest dress that would be fitting to go to Church. She was moving around the stage, but it wasn't sexualized at all. (You can see how she moves around on the video below)
I hope this blogger's discomfort of women wasn't shared by the whole audience that night. Then there was this gem:
His verdict rage at the end seemed to be directed at us. It's no secret that folk/singer-song writer/indy music isn't my favorite. Even though that genre was extremely trendy at the time, especially in Provo. I grew up on Rush and Dream Theater. More is more. I'm not a fan of super simple guitar or piano riffs, lack of instrumentation, lack of drum fills (if there's even drums), lack of guitar solos, lack of energy and the obsession of trying to be "original", by dressing like a hipster and trying to sound like The Lumineers. *
Whatever the case, we felt like a lot of people were extremely judgmental and it gave us a bad first impression of Provo. (We don't want to discount all the awesome support we got to everyone who went down to that show!) But, we're over it now.
Honestly, the main reason that we don't play down there because we have plenty of opportunity here in Salt Lake City; and we all live in Salt Lake City. When we weren't having as many opportunities to gig, we were willing to make the long drive down to Provo for a 20 - 30 minute unpaid set. We are totally willing to play there again given the right opportunity. In fact, we did a livestream concert at Rock Canyon Studios last June, and it was a blast, you can check out some of those songs on our YouTube!
*My statements on the indy genre were over simplified and generalized. I do appreicate the talent that goes into it, and blah blah blah. If you're offended, get over it. ;) I'm just one guy, what do I know?
The long awaited, highly anticipated album will finally be launched into the world! And we want you to be part of the party! We'll be doing this podcast style, like a radio talk show. We'll all be at Aaron's place, and we'll be live streaming the recordings, talking about stuff, and answering your questions! It's going to be epic! We decided to release this album over a FB livestream! We came to this decision because Nate has left the state, and while we could train a new guitarist and release the album at a traditional concert, this album is long overdue and we cannot wait a day longer to release this! It's been in the works for 2.5 years! Tune in at 7pm, August 9th! Promo Video 1
Auditions Phase I
Nate was is not only an awesome guitarist, but an all-around awesome guy! It's no easy task to find someone to fill his shoes. We took our auditions very seriously. We put an ad on KSL and told people by word of mouth. We had about 20 inquiries, and we had a lot of serious talent contact us. We used Google Forms to keep track of them all, and find out a little bit more about each candidate. We asked what they were looking to get out of the band, what experience they've had, and we asked them to send us a video of them playing Sweet Child O Mine. We figured that we wanted someone serious enough to make the effort to create a video, and someone technical enough who can play the guitar solo of Sweet Child O Mine. Auditions Phase II
We only had a handful of people send us video submissions, so it was easy to eliminate the majority of the candidates. We extended an invitation for live auditions, and we started them yesterday. We invited each candidate to choose and play 6 songs from our setlist. We are going to finish the rest of the live auditions next week and make a decision. These guys rock, and it's not going to be an easy decision! New Photos!
Our new music video is currently in the editing phase. But, my friend and co-worker Michael Romero gave us some still photos that he took while we were filming. They turned out absolutely incredible! You can view the rest of them here: http://albumizr.com/a/z9J0.
In the past two weeks, we've played a concert, shot a music video, and did a live stream concert. Now we're finally ready to send off Nate to Arkansas. We've been so busy lately, that the reality of his departure didn't seem real until last night. We went out to eat at Rodizio Grill in Trolley Square. He was worried that there wouldn't be any Brazillian steakhouses (churrascarias) in his new home. We talked about all the good times that we've had, all the awesome things that we've done, and wished Nate all the luck in his new adventure. We all agreed that we might be able to get another guitarist in our band, but we won't be able to get another Nate.
Boa sorte Nate!
Be sure to check out our latest release of live cover videos!
We played at an Independence Day party last year at a private party, in Park City. It was really the gig that kick started our band. Prior to that, we only had about 1 hour of cover song material. We had to learn 3 hours worth of songs. Howard, the host really made us feel special; like we were guests of honor. He loved us so much, that he invited us to play at charity event that he had later that month, and he wanted us to play at his Independence Day party, the following year. We graciously accepted. He left us a glowing 5-star review and kept telling us how we were his favorite party band. That was such a confidence booster, and has helped us feel like and act like a professional band.
We played again this year, and it was awesome as usual. One of the party guests remembered us and some of the songs we played and was really to see us again. The food was great, the people were awesome, and the fireworks were spectacular. We got a solid lead for another gig!
This was Nate's last gig with us. He moves out this weekend. It's going to be sad, and we're going to miss him! We're going to be taking a break while we audition a new guitarist, and get them up to speed. We'll be booking again in September.
Rock Canyon Studio Live is a studio that has a stage, and is as big as a concert hall. It is not only equipped to record audio and video, but do livestreams. This was our first Facebook livestream. We were more interested in having professional live video sessions like we did last year at Full Fidelity Studios, but we decided to do the livestream just for fun. We didn't expect anyone to watch, but we had over 200 live viewers. We promoted it quite a bit; because this is Nate's last public show with us. Also, we have a diverse geographical fanbase, and this was the first show that they could be part of. We had friends and family in Brazil, Washington State, Idaho, and Louisiana who were all tuning in to the stream.
Gaynor is the owner, and main sound engineer. He was very friendly and experienced. He brought his video crew, which included Ronda the producer and video switcher, and 3 videographers. They were a lot of fun, and they did an excellent job. Ronda was cheering us on and pumping us up throughout the entire performance.
We were very happy with how this turned out and we hope to use these guys again! I'm a huge proponent of capturing memories in the form of media. We've learned so many covers, and we've definitely made them our own, and we can now remember forever how we performed them.
We regret to announce that we are losing one of our esteemed band mates... Is it Aaron? Is it Mark? Is it Daryl? Is it Nate? Is it Allison? ****Dramatic duh duh duh***** Drum roll please...
Nate got a great job offer in Arkansas and he is going leaving early July. We sure are going to miss him. He always showed up to every practice and show 5 minutes early. He put a lot of work into his musicianship. We could always count on him to play on time, and on key. He was always looking to be challenged, and he was always working on improving his technique, sound, and talent. He brought a lot of positive energy to the band.
He was part of the band from the very beginning. We put up a KSL ad in the Summer of 2013. He had left behind a successful band in Brazil, and he had only been in the country a few weeks before responding to our ad. He had the skills, he was easy to work with, and he had one quality that many guitarists didn't have: a willingness to play modern pop hits, classic rock favorites, original music, and everything in between.
We've played a lot of shows, released some good music, and it's been a great journey. He was a driving force in making this band the success that it is today. We'll miss you Nate! Good luck in Arkansas.
This Tuesday, June 27th, will be our last public show together, and it will be livestreamed for the whole world to see! We're shooting a music video of one of the songs from our upcoming album, and we have an awesome Independence Day party that we'll be performing at.
We've already started auditions for another guitarist, and we plan on booking starting in September. We will still continue our shows at the Utah State Fair, Sept. 8, and Club 90, Nov. 3, and 4.
