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AL GORE, CRACKER BARREL & SISTER HAZEL: A MIGHTY TRIUMVIRATE OF ROCK

Brought to you by the fine folks at David O’Connell, Inc.

(published October 13, 2003 in The York Dispatch---do I even have to say it?---minus the whimsical title)

What a difference three years makes.

Six years ago, Sister Hazel was living the good life, as far as pop-music stardom goes. The Gainesville, Fla. quintet’s major label debut, Somewhere More Familiar, had reached gold status, and was well on its way to breaking the platinum barrier. A single from the CD, “All For You,” had fallen just shy of becoming a Top 10 smash, and the accompanying video spent lots of “very weird” quality time (to hear lead singer Ken Block explain it) with its elders on MTV and VH1. The band’s influence reached as far up as the White House, where no less a musical authority than ex-Vice President Al Gore sang (or robotically intoned) their praises.

By the time the group’s 2000 sophomore effort, Fortress, hit shelves, the musical landscape had drastically changed. At modern rock radio stations, jangly alternative rock was out, and the harsher, more aggressive strains of “nu metal” (typified by Staind and Limp Bizkit) were in, along with a disdain for the traditional spellings of “new,” “stained,” and “biscuit.” Top 40 radio had openly declared its love for boy-bands (Backstreet Boys), provocatively attired mall-chicks (Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera), and American-sounding Latin music. Sister Hazel’s music no longer fit into pop/rock radio playlists so easily, and Fortress proved to be anything but mighty at both radio and retail. This led to a parting of ways with their label, Universal.

“Choosing to leave Universal was a scary thing for us,” says bassist Jeff Beres. “At first, all we had ever wanted was a major label record deal, and now we had all decided the best thing to do was to leave it. There was separation anxiety, like breaking up with a girlfriend. But sometimes you know leaving is the best thing for you even if it seems the hardest thing to do. We just realized we were producing so much music we believed in that we wanted to be able to release and promote it on our own schedule.”

And that leads us right up to the present, where Sister Hazel’s new self-released record, Chasing Daylight, has just hit stores, and the group is gearing up for an October 11 stop at Messiah College. The label change, along with a shift in the climate of radio, has propelled the album’s first single, “Life Got In The Way,” onto Billboard’s Modern Adult Monitor chart, which you must not confuse with any of the six million other weekly charts that Billboard publishes.

According to the band, Chasing Daylight exists “somewhere between Cracker Barrel and sushi…comforting, artful, yet raw,” making Cracker Barrel’s much-rumored status as the epitome of artfulness official and legally binding. The songs were put together during what Beres and Block call their “just shut up and play” period, but with the playing done and the CD now in stores, the group is breaking its vow of silence and waxing philosophical on the album’s title at great length.

“Life often has you going in and out of darkness,” says Block, “but instead of looking and lurking in darkness, we try to chase daylight, and chase hopeful situations around. Our music helps us do that, and we hope it can offer the same for others. Our music is like therapy for us, but a lot of what we've gone through, other people can relate to. We spend many, many hours laboring over lyrics, making sure we're understood but leaving enough ambiguity for people to plug in their own situation. We want Chasing Daylight to offer lyrical intimacy, introspection, but also just plain primal, organic grooves and mindless fun. We want people to be able to close their doors, and sit and think to it, but also to turn it up, open their car windows and get a speeding ticket.”

So for those of you who plan on listening to Chasing Daylight while driving to the show, please keep this in mind: The fine for exceeding a posted 65 mph speed limit is $42.50 plus $2 per mph in excess of 5 mph over the limit. For any other speed limit violations, the fine is $35, plus $2 per mph in excess of 5 mph over the limit. Fines in active work zones are doubled, and various surcharges may be added to your total. In addition, penalty points will be added onto your driving license, and if you accumulate too many, it may be another three years before you are legally permitted to drive to another Sister Hazel show.

-Dave O'Connell