We were incredibly excited to stream The Bigger Lights’s brand new record, Battle Hymn, last week, but we’ve also been anxiously waiting to post our new interview with the band as well. The process behind Battle Hymn is one that the band wants all of their fans to know about, and we’re proud at PropertyOfZack to be able to share that with you. Topher, John, and I did a fantastic interview to discuss what the exact circumstances behind the creation of this album were and the possibilities for the band in the future. It’s absolutely worth the read whether you’re a big fan of the band or not, so enjoy!

For the record, could you state your names and roles in The Bigger Lights?
Topher: My name is Topher and I sing in The Bigger Lights.
John: Hi, I’m John and play guitar and keyboards.

The band released its self-titled album through Doghouse Records last year in late-March and continued to tour in support of it until the early-fall. Was the album received to the level you guys wanted it to be, in terms of being able to support it on the road?
John: I definitely don’t think so, to be honest. I think for what the record was that it was really good.  It was a really good record as far as pop-rock music goes. We certainly put a lot of effort into writing the best catchiest songs we could for that record and I think there were some compositions on that record that certainly could have been a whole lot bigger and more widely received then they ended up being. There are a lot of other factors that go into it though like the music industry. I think that there are parts of that record that we look back on and wish we had done differently. But we are really, really proud of the record. In terms of going out and supporting it on the road, the kids who came out got into it and we had an amazing die-hard contingency of kids that really helped us stay alive during that period of time. It’s hard to tell though. I think we hoped it was going to grow a little bit more than it did, but we’re still really happy that it did what it did do.

Doghouse Records is a label that’s known more for its past than it’s present in terms of their roster. We’ll get into more of what happened with Doghouse in a bit, but was the band happy with how they handled the self-titled release? Do you think there was enough press and support on it from the label?
Topher: I think it was everybody that was involved with the band, and we take some of the blame too. I think we got a little bit sidetracked with the way that we wrote that record and the way that it was produced. When we did the earlier stuff we weren’t a straight pop band, but we sort of got lumped into touring with those bands. We’re not going to say no to tours as a young band with other bands that bring out kids. I think after a while we lost sight of ourselves. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but I think we may have dumbed ourselves down a little bit with some of the content that we put on that record. Sometimes you take the backseat to other bands that are being managed too by your company, and you just miss the target that you’re aiming for. If things aren’t firing at all cylinders all time, it just doesn’t work for a pop band like that. For what that record was we needed everybody doing everything all the time, and that just wasn’t the case.
John: I think you definitely need to fire at all cylinders if you’re going to be a pop band. I would say in the grand scheme of things that we did manage to get farther than a lot get. We got to sign a record deal and did some legitimate touring. You learn in that process that there’s nothing that can replace luck and timing. People talk about working hard, and we’ve worked tirelessly with no other goals in life for five years straight. We’ve accomplished a lot, but timing and luck were not really on our side in the pop world so we never really got that big break that a lot of bands get. All that stuff is so unpredictable and you can’t control how it works. I think if some of those things came together in the past that we’d be telling a different story right now, but they didn’t [Laughs].

The album definitely seemed to be doing well with fans over the summer, but The Bigger Lights had expressed desires to dig into your next full-length even then. Was there a certain reason behind wanting to hop back into making new music again, or was there just that much creative feeling going on within the band?
Topher: I think it was a little bit of us being on the road for so long and having things fall through the cracks. I think we realized that we made a great record, but we didn’t make a Bigger Lights record. We developed so much more of a personality too when Chris joined the band, and we wanted to write with him. We got offered the biggest tour we had ever been offered and we turned it down that December because we wanted to give our fans something as quick as possible. We had evolved so fast. I tell people I feel like I live a week every day when I’m on tour. Sometimes it just feels good to get in a room and write some songs.
John: The self-titled record was also already written by the time Chris joined the band. A lot of that stuff was written even as far as eight or months prior to making that record. We wrote a lot of that stuff and then we were on the road for six months and went straight into the studio to make that album about three weeks after Chris joined the band. Chris joined and we all started feeling like it was okay to be weird and different even if rock n’ roll wasn’t popular. We didn’t have to do the pop thing because we had pop managers and labels. We were tired of playing the game the wrong way and it felt like we’d be happier being small and ourselves over continuing to fight for luck and timing.

At what point did it seem apparent that The Bigger Lights could not work with Doghouse Records anymore? Can you just discuss in detail the reasons for leaving Doghouse?
John: It’s a complicated situation. There’s no real one point that any of us can say. There were a lot of entities; they do a lot of things really well, and they have a lot of talent on their staff. They also have things that they don’t do so well. What it came down to was that they’re running two companies at the same time as a management company and a record label. I think that their timing and luck just happened to hit on the management side around the same time we were joining the record label side. A lot of their resources and talent got directed towards management because that’s where the big things were happening. That’s totally understandable, but it sort of left us in a position where we didn’t feel like we were accomplishing things that we hoped we could accomplish by signing to them. It could’ve ended us taking a year and a half to get the record out. It was hard to tell what was going to happen. We just wanted to put out the record and give back to kids. It’s going to be better for them. We’re a really independent band in terms of business. We’ve always done 95% of everything by ourselves. If we wanted to keep making music happily then we had to do it.  

Did it even seem like the band was coming close to its end because of the label issues, or was that never even a thought?
John: Well, there were times where we felt this band was coming to a close, especially in the past few months when Ryan left. I think we’ve gone through a huge metamorphosis of self-identity in terms of the way we see the band and the role that we play. What we realized is that even if we’re not a band that can tour 365 days a year or make a living from The Bigger Lights that that doesn’t mean that we can’t write and record and release music together. At the end of the day, if you’re making music that you believe in with people that you love then I think it’s a success. In that sense, I don’t think that The Bigger Lights will ever be done. I think we’ll always love and respect each other and want to create things. In terms of the conventional sense, it’s hard to know what the future holds like if we’ll ever be able to tour the way we once did. In that sense, the band may be “over,” but we look at it in a different light. It’s not over, it’s just changing to fit the circumstances that we’ve been given.
Topher: There was never a time where things were completely safe and secure at all. We did have momentum, but it was always a fight and we’ve always been the underdogs trying to get people to pay attention to us. I think we just didn’t ever want to give up. We’re a band that has been given up on countless times. We’ve lost members, we’ve had real issues, we’ve had real financial issues, health issues, self-health issues, and so much more than people even realize. You see this exterior of a pop band, but there was a lot more going on and it made us stronger. We were always helping each other and there for each other more than I’ve ever been to any member of my real family. I feel like we were always playing that underdog role from behind the scenes, but we always wanted to keep it looking good on the outside. We care about our fans and wanted to make sure we were perceived well by them. We always kept it to ourselves, but there was a lot more going on then people realize.

On first listen Battle Hymns is a straight up rock n’ roll album at many points. Is that definitely the direction the band wanted to head in?
Topher: Absolutely. I think we were really stoked on our first EP. It had pop songs on it for sure, but there was way more of a raw feeling. We wrote for us and people liked it, we didn’t write for them and then have us not like it.

The music isn’t a drastic change from past material you guys have put out, but do you have any fears that fans won’t be so receptive to the changes?
John: I don’t think we have any fears. I guess we just don’t really give a shit. We obviously care about what people think of the music, especially because they’re the only entity of this business that has never let us down. Art is supposed to be brave and gutsy and I think that you’re supposed to do what feels natural and let that speak to the audience that it will. Trying to only please what others wanted didn’t make us happy and it didn’t let us make a living either, so when you step back and look at it, we realized we wouldn’t be earning a living doing it, so what was there to keep us from making something that made us happy? We’ve long been told by people on the road that we’re a rock n’ roll band live. They’d see us live and be more drawn to that band. We weren’t scared from making this record. You can’t please everybody.

There are some tracks on the record that seem very pointed at the music industry like “Never Mistake A Suit For A Friend.” Can you discuss the contents of some of the themes on the album?
Topher: Like I said, when we went into the studio to write we were really fueled in a positive way. It’s like if you’re angry and go to the gym and take it out. We had all this stuff that was building up inside of us. We were thinking about other things besides relationships and girls too, there are bigger things. “Suit For A Friend” is definitely about the music industry. You never know who to trust and that was one of the things because you’d have people that you thought were your friends and they turn out not to be. The lyrical content of “Send Me A Miracle” was about how happy we were when we started to pursue music and like spanning to the time we wrote the record. We’re always the optimistic pessimists, knowing what we want and knowing we won’t get it. There’s a lot of push and pull about this hopelessly hopeful kind of attitude. It was the most honest lyrical thing and it was easy to do because of everything that we had been through.  

Ryan Seaman, the band’s drummer, left The Bigger Lights recently to join Falling In Reverse. How difficult for the band was that?
Topher: It was definitely tough because to this day Ryan is my best friend. We’re a band of brothers and anybody can tell you that. It stung on a musical side and a friend side as well. Like I said, we’ve gone through so much together and I keep in touch with everyone as much as I can. I didn’t expect it to happen, but when it did it was like, “Man, what are we going to do now?” It was always the five of us fighting against everyone else, and on a friend and professional side it was just a bummer. You feel like you’re losing a friend and your family and your band at the same time. It was a hard thing when it first happened. It was unexpected and crappy.

I want to discuss a few things now that you guys have personally said. John, you said that you “want to make sure that we expose the process for what it was so that – love it or hate it - the album can be interpreted as the sort of unique entity I think it is in today’s musical landscape: a unadulterated collection of compositions that are 100% representative of the artists’ abilities, beliefs, influences, and relationship with one another.” That might just be a few sentences, but that is definitely a pretty big statement. Can you explain that?
John: We took a really progressive approach with this record by necessity to a certain extent. A lot of what makes this record special to us is the decisions made around this record. I think that’s going to make this record mean a lot to us regardless of whether people dig it or not. We turned down co-writes, we turned down production offers with producers we respect, we turned down a lot of different circumstances. We decided with each other that we were going to make this record on our own. We made every bit of it on our own. No one touched it besides the band. We’re releasing and marketing it by ourselves too. It’s 100% representative of us and nobody else. As far as the industry is concerned, you’re the first person who has heard or touched any of it. It means a lot to us that we were able to make something with each other like this. We always wanted to get back to this point, and we’re really happy that we got to that point again. I really hope people understand and appreciate the amount of love and time and care you have to put in into doing it that way. It’s not easy, it was exhausting. I hope people can appreciate it. We’re extremely proud of it.

The band is also attaching a manifesto to the album extremely detailing the events over the last year or so. One thing in particular that stands out is that you said, “We burned the house down and stood on the smoldering ash and swore to each other that the next thing we did would either be the gutsiest, most relevant thing we had in us or we’d do nothing at all.” From the time of leaving Doghouse to now, do you feel like you succeeded with that goal?
John: I completely do.
Topher: This was the complete capture of everything that we were capable of doing at the time with no other hands attached whatsoever from the second we stepped into the studio to write it until the time it was done being mastered. It was all completely us. There was nobody saying that something didn’t sound good. It was always us working with each other and only each other. It’s a shame, but a lot of bands don’t get to do that. We knew where we stood as a band and we had nothing to lose. So we did it the way that it should be done. We couldn’t be more happy and proud of what we did.
John: It’s not just about the music either. This refers to our lives as well, and I think we did that too. We cut ties with everybody that we worked with. We cut ties with all of that. We went in, wrote stuff, sent out the first songs, and the people didn’t get it. They didn’t hear “the hit.” That wasn’t what we wanted to be, and we really believe in this music. That’s what’s gutsy to do as an artist. We made decisions to make sure that that art gets out into the world in the best way possible. I’m really proud of all my band mates and best friends to have the guts to do this. We accomplished what we wanted to.

A record release show has been announced, but what about future touring?
John: We hadn’t really thought that far in advance [Laughs]. To be honest, I have no idea. I don’t know what kind of touring we’ll do. We had to sell our van and trailer to get out of debt. It was driving us to a point where we made decisions based on money. It’s a tough place to be when you’re not making money personally and have no hope of making money because all the money you make goes back into paying the band’s bills. We had to sell our touring assets to get to a point where we could make the record we wanted to make. It’ll be difficult to do touring right at this point. The record will have to catch on or we’d have to get a huge offer. We’re open to the right opportunity, but our definition of the right opportunity has changed. We don’t see ourselves in the power-pop tours anymore just for the sake of it. We’ve tried it for years and it didn’t get us what we wanted.
Topher: This is the statement that we want to make. If it resonates with people enough, then they’ll get a chance to see it.

Ryan I believe said that 13 tracks were recorded for the album. Are there plans to do anything with the other five?
Topher: We plan too much. There might always be Bigger Lights music. There’s nothing preventing us from doing that.
John: We’ve reached this point where for us to put something out that it needs to be great. We can’t put something out to just have a reason to tour. It’ll be impossible to predict, but I think we’ll all still play and write together. I’d be surprised if we didn’t come out with some collection of sounds that we didn’t think was worth hearing.