SHREDnews

By: Jess Grenier

Jess Grenier: Please state your name and what you do for the band.

Topher Talley:  My name is Topher and I sing for The Bigger Lights

JK Royston:  My name is JK and I play guitar

Jess Grenier:  How did the band get started?

Topher Talley:  Well,

JK Royston:  We met on eHarmony

Topher Talley:   Yeah, Match.com, love for music, we have the same bands in our music lists and it just kind of worked out.

JK Royston:  I’m a dog lover and that kind of just brought my hits up so…

Topher Talley:  It’s true, and it’s just kind of… the stars aligned and we went from five to four to three to five and then we were The Bigger Lights.

JK Royston:  That sounds complicated but that is what happened actually. I dunno, we were friends in college, at least a few of us were friends in college and then we met some new friends after college. We started a rock band and we’ve been doing it ever since so, pretty simple I think.

Jess Grenier:  Is there any story behind the name The Bigger Lights?

Topher Talley:  Yeah, we stole it, totally from like, better artists by the name of Bill Shakespeare

JK Royston:  A little guy named Bill… Shakespeare

Topher Talley:  Bill Shakespeare wrote a little story called The Tempest and in it he wrote that they referred the stars are the bigger lights and the great unknown. So we just snatched it right up.

JK Royston:   We liked it, so we borrowed it.

Jess Grenier: Do you have any main influences when writing music?

Topher Talley:  Eh, no… hearts and brains and life lessons and guitar riffs.

JK Royston:  I think we have a pretty strong classic rock kind of influence that I think a lot of bands, or at least modern bands don’t seem to have any more. I mean all of us, we obviously, there’s certain parts of modern music that we love but at the same time, I think we’re much more drawn to a certain quality of song writing that existed more primarily in the previous eras. We’re all huge into Queen, Areosmith and Journey and stuff life that. Similarly I think recent, just kind of starting of the last record moving into the next record we started listening to a lot more country music and a lot more of pop and old country stuff like Ryan Adams and Garth Brooks and Keith Urban and all these bands or artists that are both songwriters and performers at the same time the focus is one the song and I think that’s a really cool place that is going to influence us in the future especially.

Jess Grenier: The Bigger Lights Self-Titled album was released on March 30th, can you tell me a little about it?

Topher Talley:  Well it’s self-titled because we felt it was it was the first time we actually our band on record. We’re very, very, very happy with the result of the record, the songs are more fun to play live and it lets us be the band that we needed to be in the beginning and honestly it’s just honest rock songs. It’s honest to who we are and what we like, its pretty straight forward, it just our band on record.

Jess Grenier: Do you have any favorite songs off the record?

Topher Talley:  I do, the last song on the record called “So Crazy” and then theres another song called “Skinny Jeans” on the record that I think that is probably one of the most honest writing songs we have on the record.

JK Royston:  Sidebar: both are country influenced songs, so take that and predict the future as you will.

Topher Talley:  Yeah, totally. Taylor Swift tour…

JK Royston: CMT

Jess Grenier:  What are you looking forward to most on this tour with Cute Is What We Aim For, The Friday Night Boys and Down With Webster?

Topher Talley:  Honestly? The kids, for me it’s the kids cause we just, we just put out the record we think is our first record, in my opinion, in my eyes and we a nation tour and we’re coming back around and I know we won a lot of kids over on that tour and I hope to see those kids plus a lot of other new face on this one. So, for me it’s all about giving back to the people that come to the show, wither they know us or not.

Jess Grenier: Do have any plans for after this tour?

Topher Talley:  Uhm, no, time off, a little bit of time off which I think will be well deserved. We’ve been out pretty much just about a couple weeks in February, we’ve been gone since January and we’ve haven’t really been home since. It’ll be good to have a couple weeks off then I’m sure we’ll be back out doing something big in the fall. So yeah, maybe like a headlining run, in maybe August for something. You never know.

JK Royston:   We’ll see what happens, maybe we’ll take some time off to the beach or maybe we’ll tour more… maybe we want to make a country record.

Topher Talley:  Maybe we’ll go on a cruise

JK Royston:   Maybe, you never really know, maybe we all take up acting…

Topher Talley:  It’s true

JK Royston:   It’s hard to tell

Jess Grenier: If you could tour with any three bands who would they be?

JK Royston: Oh, Taylor Swift, Queen and Areosmith

Topher Talley:  That’s good… Areosmith, Queen and Michael Jackson

Jess Grenier: Queen is quite popular.

Topher Talley:  As they should be

JK Royston:  There’s just something about that band

Jess Grenier: What’s something that your fans might not know about you?

Topher Talley:  My middle name is named after half of a stripper’s joint and half of a chipmunk duo from Disney. My middle name is Dale.

JK Royston:  That’s a pretty good fact.

Topher Talley:  It’s a fact baby, I was born with it.

JK Royston:  Let’s see, when I was in tenth grade I got an award for chemistry, I don’t know why because science is my worst subject and since then I’ve forgotten all of it, except the chemistry of song.

Topher Talley:  The chemistry of the heart.

JK Royston:  Yeah, there’s something about that.

Jess Grenier: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Topher Talley:  Just thank you to everyone that’s supported our band so far honestly like, that’s the reason why we’re able to do what we do. I mean, the bigger that grows the more we’ll be capable of doing you know, from one stand point but I think this band knows exactly where it’s going.

JK Royston:  There’s no I in team and stay in school.

Topher Talley:  That’s good, dude.

Jess Grenier:  And don’t do drugs.

Topher Talley:  Eh… no just kidding.

JK Royston:  We’re going to have to negotiate that last one… haha just kidding.