10.26.11
Singer/songwriter Trevor Hall is in town for a concert at the Ogden Theatre and he will visit KBCO Studio C tomorrow (Thursday, October 27th) at 6pm.
Listen to the session on 97.3 KBCO or online at kbco.com for your chance at tickets to the show!
Text ‘studioc’ to 68255 to get an alert 15 minutes before any session begins. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter to get KBCO Studio C updates.
09.22.11
Trevor Hall is a musician who is on an incredible journey. Starting young in South Carolina and landing a contract with a major label right out of high school, Hall has traveled far and wide, finely tooling his eclectic musical craft along the way. Even as he faced the hardships of being misplaced and practically forgotten by the same major record label who signed him, this spiritual artist has bravely journeyed on. Getting a fresh start with Vanguard Records, Hall continues to tune his unique blend of folk, pop and reggae. The aptly titled album Everything Everytime Everywhere demonstrates this young artist’s desire to share his vast knowledge and experiences to his critics and fans alike through his music. With this exclusive interview, we get an inside scoop as to what stories Hall has to share in his latest foray into musical bliss.
OS: I just wanted to get started with your origins a bit. You got your first record deal in high school. How was that whole experience for you?
TH: Yeah, I signed my first deal my senior year of high school. All through my junior and sophomore year, I was flying around the country and meeting presidents and stuff. It wasn’t until near the end of my senior year of high school that I signed a deal with GeffenRecords. It was cool at first, being eighteen years old and signing a big deal and moving to LA. It was a lot of fun, but it didn’t work out the way I expected it to work out. I wrote a few records for Geffen and I was on the label for about three years. Both records got shelved and they never came out. At the end of three years, they dropped me from the label. It was quite a whirlwind but it taught me a lot. I don’t really regret the experience, but yeah, it didn’t really go according to plan. [laughs]
OS: You’re now signed with Vanguard Records. How would you compare the atmosphere there with Geffen?
TH: Well, Vanguard is a lot smaller than Geffen. I think part of the problem with Geffen was that it was really hard to communicate with people. If you wanted to talk to this guy, you had to call this person and maybe that person would call this person. It was just too much. I think our group and the vibe of our music is very family-orientated. And with Vanguard, if I wanted to talk to the president, I can call him right now. It’s not as big as Geffen, so things just work a bit smoother.
OS: Earlier this year, you wrapped up a bunch of tour dates with Matishayu. What is it exactly that you like about touring with artists that share your reggae influences?
TH: Well, I like to tour in the first place. Be on the road and play shows and be out there. When you’re touring with somebody, you’re with that person all the time, you know? It’s a lot better when the person you’re touring with is 1) your friend and 2) you enjoy their music. Maybe some tours you go on, if you’re not really a fan of the artist or if they’re not really nice to you, it just makes the tour a lot harder. [laughs] So, I’ve been really lucky to be touring with some of my influences like Jimmy Cliff or The Wailers and Matishayu. It’s such a blessing to be sharing the stage with artists that influence your music. And I watched them every night. You can take a lot of pointers and techniques that help your own performance. It was really nice.
OS: Matishayu’s guitarist, Aaron Duggan, plays on your newest album. What was it like collaborating with him and the other artists you brought in for the album?
TH: Well, I’ve always like Aaron’s songwriting style. So it was fun to write some tunes with him. We’ve known each other so long and we’ve always talked about getting together and doing some stuff, so it was nice for that to finally come to fruition.
OS: I was listening to your album earlier and one thing I found to be really interesting was that first part of the album where you start off with that ambient sound right in the city. Where did you record that?
TH: That was recorded in India in a bazaar, like a marketplace, that I go to a lot. That is actually from my digital camera. I was just taking a short video of that corner. It’s one of my favorite places to hang out. So, when we put it on the record, I just took the sound from that video off my digital camera and put it on the record and said that poem over it to start the album off.
OS: You tend to put a lot of those city ambient sound noises in this album. What made you want to do that this time around?
TH: Well, with this album, I wanted to create more a whole mood, kind of like a story. A lot of the songs are inspired by experiences I had in India, so I wanted to use those colors, those actual sounds, those actual environments and have them on the record, because it paints a mood. A feeling within yourself. So, I kind of wanted to bring that to the forefront to really make the listener get the vibe of the record and where the songs were inspired from. Because lots of times you hear a great song, and you’re like “Oh it’s a great song, but what inspired the song?” It’s lots of those experiences from India, so that’s why we threw those in there.
OS: One song in particular, “Dr. Seuss”, makes reference to One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. What was the reason why you wanted to do that with that song?
TH: Well, that song was written with Jimmy, the producer. When I had come into the studio, he had already written the music. The beat, the guitar progression, and stuff. And, I was like, “Aww man, this is such a cool song. We really have to come up with something cool for lyrics, because we can’t make it suck.” [laughs] And we were thinking and thinking and nothing was coming to mind. I said, “This is such a hard song, a hard beat. What can we come to heart about?” And Jimmy was like, “What CAN we come to heart about? Why don’t we just go with that line?” And then he was like “This morning, I was reading this Dr. Seuss book to my kids. ‘One Fish, Two Fish’.” And I was like, “Yeah! I know that book!” And we were like, “Let’s just make this song about that book.” So we just pulled the words of the book off the Internet and kind of made the song dedicated to Dr. Seuss.
OS: I noticed in the hidden track at the end of the record, you chant this Hindu prayer. Why did you choose to do that?
TH: Well, number one, I’m a very spiritual person and wanted to give thanks for the opportunity to play music, and write music and make a record. The second thing is there’s kind of a storyline through the whole record that starts from the first song to the last song in the mountain. It’s kind of like a journey through all different kinds of emotions and feelings. In the beginning, in the poem, when I say “Take me back to the palace of my eternal home”. The whole record for me is that whole journey back to my eternal home. Not my home geographically speaking, but spiritually speaking. So when you get to that last track on the mountain, for me, the mountain is a song of we’re going to the mountain. Not a physical mountain. It’s like a place of internal heights within your own self. You’re reaching high places in your own conscious, so to say. It’s not like we’re quite there yet, we’re hiking up there. Then, there’s this moment of silence. A couple minutes or so. And the prayer for me is “we’re there, that’s eternal above that I’m speaking about in the beginning of the record.” At that moment, we’re just praising that almighty above. So, to me, it’s a very important part of the record to have that hidden track, because it completes the story. In the track, there’s little remnants from the album. You faintly hear that girl singing from right before “Dr. Seuss”. There’s some street noises from the beginning of the album that are there. So, it’s like all those things, all those memories, they’re all together and you’ve reached your destination.
OS: You were also involved in some charity work in India. Does that tie into album at all?
TH: Well, I go to India a lot. I try to go every year. There’s an ashram there that kind of takes in underprivileged children. So, when I go over there, I just collect donations and give a bunch of it there. The place is very dear to my heart. It’s a very special place and I love very much. That little girl that is singing on “Dr. Seuss” is from that orphanage. And, in the hard copy of the CD, we have one of the little kids holding a tennis ball with the logo. I really wanted it to bring that place that’s very dear to me. I wanted to show that and express those feelings, because a lot of those songs are inspired by that place. I wanted to visually and sonically clue that vibration to tell the story.
You can pick up the inspirational Everything Everytime Everywhere at Amazon or iTunes and explore more about Trevor Hall at his official Web site.
Published by Reggie on September 22, 2011.
09.18.11
“Brand New Days” is the Amazon Mp3 Free Song of the Day! The Album E3 is only $5.99 while you’re over there! http://amzn.to/nmBSgw
Also, tonight you can check out an in-studio set from Trevor tonight (9/18) just after 7pm PT (9pm CT/10pm ET). In San Diego, tune in to 94/9fm and elsewhere log on to www.fm949sd.com If you listen, email Pyles about your favorite part of the session!
09.16.11
Those of you in the Santa Rosa, CA area are in for a treat: Trevor & Aaron will be doing a special acoustic set for you Wed., 9/21 at 1pm as part of the KRSH Concert series. Come down to www.russianriverbrewing.com for a special acoustic version of Trevor’s music!
09.13.11
Trevor will be doing an in-store performance in the Long Beach, California record store Fingerprints on the 19th of September at 7 pm. For all the details on this amazing event, see the Fingerprints website: http://www.fingerprintsmusic.com/
08.26.11
The period during which Trevor Hall made his new CD, “Everything Everytime Everywhere” came with plenty of distractions, struggles and change for the 24-year-old artist.
One of the adjustments for this, Hall’s fourth CD, involved getting together with some professional songwriters to try to collaborate on songs. He agreed to give co-writing a try, even though he wasn’t sold on the idea.
“That was a new thing for me,” Hall said in an early August phone interview. “I never really kind of did that whole thing where you meet with writers and you try to write songs together. I always thought it was a little impersonal, just kind of meeting up with somebody and they know nothing about you and you know nothing about them, and let’s just write a song and make a hit. I wasn’t really feeling all that.”
Hall may still hold that skeptical opinion of arranged collaborations. But “Everything Everytime Everywhere” would have had an entirely different album had Hall not gone to Los Angeles for these co-writing blind dates.
It was there he met a producer/songwriter named Jimmy Messer.
“I met up with Jimmy just to do some writing,” Hall said. “And as soon as we kind of got together, it just kind of sparked and I thought ‘Oh man, this is good. I like this.’ So I came back a couple of times and we were writing more and more.”
It dawned on Hall that he had not only found a compatible songwriter, but the person he wanted to produce the new CD.
“He was really into it, Hall said, “and we just kind of went with it.”
“Everything Everytime Everywhere” is still very much Hall’s vision, but Messer’s involvement is very apparent. Half of the CD’s songs are Hall/Messer compositions, and Messer produced, engineered and mixed the CD.
Hall had enough on his plate as it was as the “Everything Everytime Everywhere” project was taking shape.
He was changing managers, his touring band and dealing with issues that went beyond his career.
“I was having a little bit of family trouble,” Hall said. “Then on top of that, within my own, I think, spiritual journey, I was having some struggles. So all of those things were kind of coming down on me kind of hard.”
Hall, with Messer on board, though, plowed into the project. And while Hall said he had “an amazing time” making “Everthing Everytime Everywhere,” it wasn’t a smooth process, and it was a scramble to finish the CD in time for Hall to take a previously planned December/January trip to India.
The trip is worth mentioning because in a sense, the new CD didn’t really feel complete to Hall until he was in India.
“I was with a teacher of mine over there, and we were talking about all of these things, and I asked him, I said ‘I’ve been having lots of struggle holding my stance, I guess my spiritual stance, in all of this kind of chaos in the world,’” Hall recalled. “’What do I do if my environments don’t really support my spiritual life? I asked him this, and I was expecting some big instruction or something I could do. And he just looked at me and he said ‘Everything Everytime, Everywhere.’
“He said that spirit, that whatever you want to call it, God, love, it’s in everything all of the time, everywhere you go,” Hall said. “So that’s all he said, But really if you have that attitude, there’s no need to worry and no need to fear anything. It was interesting for me because I had already recorded the record, but I didn’t know what I was going to name the album. But as soon as he said that, I was like ‘That’s it.’ And I find all of those songs, or the record’s journey, that was the theme the whole time.”
Themes of spirituality are nothing new for Hall, and several songs on “Everything Everytime Everywhere” speak to comfort in the face of difficulties (“All I Ever Know”) and spiritual renewal (“Brand New Day” and “The Mountain”).
Musically, though, there are a few notable shifts. As on his previous releases — a 2006 EP, “The Rascals Have Returned,” a 2008 concert CD, “Alive & On The Road With Chris Steele,” and a 2009 self-titled CD — Hall continues to blend pop and reggae as key musical elements. But he branches out on songs such as “Fire,” a hard-hitting tune with some tasty electric guitar, and especially the meditative yet musically rich ballad, “The Love Wouldn’t Die.”
“The Love Wouldn’t Die,’ is probably the most different kind of style and sound that I’ve ever done, but that’s like my favorite song that I’ve ever written,” he said.
Overall, Hall felt he took a very natural approach to his new material.
“Like if it was a reggae song we were like hey, let’s go all the way reggae,” he said. “And if it’s a rock song, hey let’s go all the way rock and roll and not worry about if it fit together or not. And then at the end of it all, it just fit together.”
TO GO: Trevor Hall will be opening for Matisyahu this weekend, August 25 at The Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater, 1700 Washington Ave, Miami Beach. Show starts at 8pm and tickets are $39.50.
http://www.sunpostweekly.com/
08.24.11
Here’s a list of the amazing retailers that are carrying E3. Thank you all for the support!
Retailers
AEC ONE STOP GROUP, INC.
AMOEBA – SAN FRANCISCO
ANDERSON MERCHANDISERS / Best Buy
BAKER & TAYLOR
BEAT, THE
BIRDLAND RECORDS SHOP
BOO BOO RECORDS
BULL MOOSE MUSIC
CACTUS MUSIC
CANTERBURY RECORDS, INC
CHESTER COUNTY BOOK & MUSIC CO.
COIRO CORP.
CROSSROAD MUSIC CORP., THE
DEARBORN MUSIC CO.
DIMPLE, INC
DISC AND DAT, INC
DISC EXCHANGE, INC., THE
DO-RE-MI-MUSIC INC
DOWN IN THE VALLEY
EASY STREET RECORDS
ELECTRIC FETUS
EXCLUSIVE COMPANY
GRATEFUL RECORDS, INC.
GREGORY HALAMAY, INC.
HASTINGS ENTERTAINMENT, INC.
HOLLYWOOD AMOEBA INC. DBA AMOEBA MUSIC
INDEPENDENT RECORDS & VIDEO
INDY CD & VINYL
J.S. MUSIC CORPORATION DBA/THE EXCHANGE
J&R ELECTRONICS, INC.
JACK’S MUSIC SHOPPE
MELODY RECORD SHOP
MIDWEST TAPE LLC
MUSIC MILLENNIUM
NEWBURY COMICS INC
PAINTED SMILES INC.
PARK AVE/HALFAMAN
PHILLIPS ENTERPRISES/SCHOOLKIDS
PRINCETON RECORD EXCHANGE
RAND FOSTER & K. J FOSTER / FINGERPRINTS
ROLLING STONES
SALZER’S MERCANTILE
SILVER PLATTERS LLC
SOFTLAND CORP.
SONIC BOOM RECORDS
SOUND GARDEN
STREETLIGHT RECORDS, LTD
SUPER D
TRANS WORLD ENTERTAINMENT
WATERLOO RECORDS
ZIA ENTERPRISES
Airplay Direct
Listen to the full radio mix of “Brand New Day” plus sample other tracks HERE.
Debuts on iTunes Rock Chart at #3
#12 iTunes Top Albums
#8 Amazon Movers & Shakers
Trevor Hall’s sophomore release Everything Everytime Everywhere is available today! Click here to stream the record in its entirety at AOL Music! The record makes an impact debuting on the iTunes Rock chart at #3, iTunes Top Albums #12, and #8 on Amazon’s Movers & Shakers.
Everything Everytime Everywhere showcases Hall’s rare ability to write universal songs infused with underlying themes of devotion and community in the vein of his two heroes, Ben Harper & Bob Marley. The first single, “Brand New Day” is an infectious highly anthemic guitar-driven gem (click here to see the lyric video), and one of eleven rock/pop songs that have made this 24-year-old one of the most lauded up-and-coming artists on the American music scene.
Trevor’s captivating live performances and growing popularity have led to sold out shows across the country. Hall has also toured with the legendary Jimmy Cliff, Michael Franti, Matisyahu and Colbie Caillat, to name a few. He is currently on tour with Matisyahu (see tour dates below) with a headline tour to follow in the fall including dates in New York City at the Mercury Lounge on Thursday, September 1st and in Los Angeles on September 17th at The Roxy.
Everything Everytime Everywhere is the follow up to his 2009 label debut, Trevor Hall, which featured the single “Unity,” a song written and performed with his longtime friend, Matisyahu. The self-titled release debuted at #7 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and Hall was cited by MTV’s ‘Subway Fresh Buzz’ Series as “one of the 20 emerging artists in 2010.”
09.30.11
