We cannot say enough how excited we are to have had a CD release party! This has been a LONG time coming, but it was well worth the wait! We had about 300 people come out and support us at The Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco last Friday, the 24th and the having the support we have received is inspirational. To celebrate this incredible event, we’ve put together some of our thoughts on the album and what we like to play for you guys. Here’s what we came up with:
For those of you who have been rocking with SAGE since the beginning, you know this is actually our second full album. We never really released the first one physically, and it is much different from the current album. That first one, Sage, was self-produced – recorded in a bedroom in Hawaii, across the street from a school. We had to make sure we recorded between bell rings and before or after lunch hour to avoid bells and students talking on our tracks. We have come a long way from that.. though we are still very proud of those songs and that album (you can hear it on our music page.. click HERE). The first album has a very different sound from what SAGE has become.
This album, Sweet Melody, is definitely a step in the right direction for us. We think it captures not only our music, but also, the energy that SAGE is made up of as well. We have melodic progressions and upbeat tempos that contrasts to more serious lyrics, and we tie it in with positive messages that we hope come across no matter where or when you hear our music. With Sweet Melody, we aim to give you a taste of what coming to a show entails – thumping, dancing, smiling and flat out joy! Joy for music, friends, people and for life.
We’ve been performing songs from Sweet Melody for over a year now and over the course of that year, we’ve all developed our own favorites to play. We’re proud of all of our songs, and super stoked to be sharing them with you! In fact, a lot of our reasons for choosing the songs we chose as our favorites have to do with you, our friends, and our fans. We chose them based on how you have reacted, whether it be through comments and rates on iTunes and our mailing list, or at shows when we play them.
For example, Dana’s favorite song to play live is Tempting. He loves it because he loves the energy that it brings to the crowd. He thinks the band feeds off that energy and that song creates a feeling of community. There is a part in the chorus that encourages the audience to sing along with us and having a collective “woo-hoo-hoo” really gives him a high!
Dave on the other hand, loves to play the song Hideaway. It is a more chill song on the album, with a reggae vibe to it. Dave likes that he can jam out to it all day and he feels he can play it while sitting on the beach under a coconut tree (stereotype alert), or rock out to it on stage. The mood this song sets transcends location. The beat of the music is so chill and it gives a certain feel to the room when we play it. The beat of the song actually balances out the seriousness of the subject matter of the lyrics, and Dave loves that the audience sort of takes the journey of the song with the band as they hear it.
The song that Ben chose as his favorite is sort of similar to Dave’s choice, in that the tempo of the songs sort of takes away from the gravity of the lyrics. Ben’s favorite is the song to play is Lose My Mind, both because he likes the vocal harmonies and the way the energy of the arrangement juxtaposes the potentially sad lyrics about personal loss. Ben also likes that he sees the audiences’ response to this song almost instantly. The crowd dances to this song and sings along – and some people even join in the harmonies. This song reaches a lot of our fans in different ways and that comes through.
Josh’s favorite song to play on the album is one that we actually don’t get to play at every gig – Shallow. It is so positive and life-affirming in nature that Josh says the energy is infectious. With both the arrangement and the lyrics, Josh feels like this song is a representation of what SAGE looks to accomplish both with their music and in their lives. We get giddy whenever we see people singing along to this song (or any of our songs really) because we see our messages getting across, and with this song especially, that’s a good thing!
One more song that we all feel we need to mention is Whirlwind. We all love playing this song – it is unique sounding and completely danceable and the energy we get from our audience whenever we play this song is incredible. It is pretty much enough to fuel an entire new set. We all love playing it live – there is an instrumental where we ask our fans to “bounce” with us on stage and this song is really our symbol that the SAGE party has started!
Well, there you have it.. We hope that you enjoy listening to the songs we have talked about, as well as the other songs on the album. We hope this provides you with a little inside look into how we view our music, and also, we hope it helps you understand just exactly how much YOU, our fans mean to us. These songs would have a lot less meaning to us if you guys weren’t here to share our music with us. Thank you for the support and your help in letting SAGE continue to rock!
Aloha,
Ben, Dana, Dave and Josh
SAGE
