The Lights - Last Hurrah
Here's the Lights' Bio:
We don't know much about ourselves. We've been told that we have been and still are in other bands. Bands like the Glass, the Secret Service, and Eighty Katie. Some of us backed Cory Branan on the David Letterman show (true). We play atmospheric rock pieces in and around the Memphis, TN region. And if we heard right - we'll have an album sometime before winter. There is one thing we are sure of, we are not make-believe.
They're basically a Memphis supergroup made up of some of my favorite people. Here's an interview I did with lead singer Bret Krock-Preston from The Commercial Appeal.
After more than a year of sporadic shows, supergroup The Lights -- singer/guitarist Bret Krock-Preston, local producer and sound engineer Kevin Cubbins on guitar, and the hardest working rhythm section in Memphis, John Argroves on drums and Mark Stuart on bass -- are finally ready to record their debut album.
"We weren't able to play for a whole year due to scheduling," explains Krock-Preston. "Kevin was producing, John was playing with The Glass, and Mark was playing the Secret Service."
While mostly a side project for the rest of the group, Krock-Preston, 29, who was born in Memphis but grew up in Mobile, Ala., has commandeered the project and has plans for a double CD to be self-released in the fall. In the meantime, the band plans to continue doing sets with other local acts; they'll be at the Hi-Tone Saturday, with Arma Secreta and Augustine.
Krock-Preston started his Memphis music career after returning from Alabama to major in English at the University of Memphis. He started playing guitar in his mid-teens.
"My mom and her dad are virtuoso pianists, and they tried to teach me piano, but I wasn't interested," he said. "But my mom had a twelve-string guitar, and I picked that up when I was 15.
"Lately I've been inspired a lot by a CD my mom made for me of a symphony my grandfather (Robert Horsely) wrote that was performed by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. That, and a lot of movie scores."
With that musical background, it's no wonder Krock-Preston cites as one of his biggest influences, other than The Beatles, the illustrious Electric Light Orchestra.
"Jeff Lynn is one of my heroes. He's a very understated rock star; he's not even really a rock star, he was just in a very popular band," says Krock-Preston. "He produced a lot of really great records for Roy Orbison and The Traveling Wilburys."
Before The Lights, Krock-Preston performed in another popular Memphis band called Eighty Katie.
"We used to make up stories about where we got the name. We don't really remember, so we told people that it was an aeronautical maneuver that pilots used to get out of the way of missiles, and it just kind of stuck."
The band played Cheap Trick-inspired power pop, while aspiring to irony free arena rock. "We watched a lot of Kiss and took it to heart," he said.
The band ultimately imploded and Krock-Preston found himself once again flying solo. Then he ended up in the studio recording a couple of cover songs with Cubbins and Stuart, and the seeds of The Lights were planted.
"Initially it was going to be very basic rock," Krock-Preston said, but "I started watching Kubrick movies and I wanted to write really grand songs with vague lyrics that seemed epic."
In the meantime, before The Lights CD is released, Krock-Preston plans to play more solo shows, including an opening slot for Andrew Bryant's CD release show June 1 at the Hi-Tone Cafe. He's still hoping to add more songs to his repertoire before The Lights begin recording songs next month for their ambitious double disc debut.
"The first couple of years I was in The Lights, I had a nonchalant attitude," he says, "but now I really want people to see us, because otherwise you're just playing to the soundman and the wall."
Add them on Myspace.
Check out some photos from one of their shows.
