Burning Daylight was my band. Most shows I play these days are solo acoustic affairs but sometimes I’m lucky enough to be joined by my band mates past and present. It wasn’t always this way though; let me tell you a little story….
At the turn of the 20th century, two rock and roll upstarts met at SUNY Geneseo in Geneseo, N.Y. After discussing their shared love of both The Ramones and Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizzas, they soon discovered that one played guitar and one played bass….and so it began.
The guitar player (that would be me) and the bass player (that would be Adam Jester) soon learned a number of songs together as disparate as The Ramones “Havana Affair” and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”. Early on, we both seemed to gravitate toward the “alternative country” movement which was almost sort of hip back then. Bands like the Old 97s, Son Volt and Wilco dominated our CD players (no iPods yet) and were actually signed to major labels and making a bit of a dent in the music industry. We didn’t love this music because it was in style though; we loved it because it felt authentic to us, with real singers and real stories about real people.
Adam and I set out to learn enough songs to perform a full concert, mixing covers with a few originals (some embarrassing now and some that we occasionally still play). It wasn’t very long until we started performing at local open mic nights and eventually, our very first show as Burning Daylight, in a Days Inn hotel lounge (the first of many, MANY “Spinal Tap” moments). We struggled to find a band name that suited us for quite some time. Early contenders were “The Polecats”, “The Northern Gentlemen” and (my personal favorite) “Sam Elliot’s Mustache”.
Then one day, Adam and I were watching the John Wayne movie “The Cowboys” when lightning struck. During one early morning scene, John Wayne admonishes his ranch hands to wake up and get to work. “You’re Burning Daylight!” he exclaims. Seemed to perfectly sum up Adam and I at the time, two somewhat unmotivated, somewhat lost punks needing a good swift kick in the ass. The John Wayne, Old West connection didn’t hurt either, as we fancied ourselves as young alt-country troubadours. In later years, we almost came to resent the name as all too often, people assumed we were an emo band….a mark of shame at the time, but in retrospect, not exactly a pressing issue.
So we rocked and we rolled and we took just about any gig offered to us and soon enough, we decided we needed to rock a little harder. Enter J.P. Nawn, an old friend from my hometown of Seneca Falls, N.Y. J.P. was a drummer who learned his craft listening to Nirvana and Weezer but whose tastes had grown quite eclectic. J.P. joined us one night in Adam’s basement and we began putting a set together. The very first song we played was “Honky Tonk Blues” by Hank Williams and we immediately knew we were onto something. Now, we had to take this sound and make it our own.
I’ve been writing songs since I first picked up a guitar at age 16. I wrote a bunch for my first band in high school in a pretty obvious Kurt Cobain “grunge” style. I loved the way I felt upon completing a song, but I certainly wasn’t very dedicated to my craft. Lyrics for an entire song typically took no more than 5 minutes, if that. For this new band with J.P and Adam, I wanted to write songs at least a little more memorable.
Before long, I had written 6 new original songs and we decided we needed a demo in order to get more shows. We went to a local studio and knocked out all 6 songs in a couple of hours, spent another couple of hours mixing and bam, we had a demo. Listening to it now, I tend to wonder what I was thinking production-wise, but the songs were there. Maybe not all of them, but two of these songs (“Ruby Don’t” and “She’s Seething”) even ended up on our debut record, “Whiskey & Romances”. The demo served its purpose and got us a bunch of new gigs and eventually, it got into the hands of producer Dan McLoughlin.
Dan McLoughlin is the bass player in the band The Push Stars and a renowned producer and engineer. The Push Stars were (and still are) one of my favorite bands and I was lucky enough to go from fan to friend with all three of them. Chris Trapper (singer/guitarist) has been a steadfast supporter of mine for almost 10 years and Ryan MacMillen (drummer) has always been willing to help out whenever he can. Dan invited Burning Daylight to The Push Stars’ hometown of Boston to record a 4 song E.P. in December 2002 and we eagerly made the trip.
We learned a LOT about the recording process that week and Dan’s patient guidance and immense talent behind the mixing board allowed us to quickly craft our first release, the E.P. “Tomorrow Night”. The E.P. received some critical praise from the local media and we began getting more and more high profile gigs opening for national acts like Steve Forbert and Tim Easton. I was about to lean a lesson about the constant flux of the music business though, as change was on the horizon.
Between the release of “Tomorrow Night” and the impending recording of our debut full-length record, J.P. had begun to play in a few different bands. Not only did it keep him busy, but J.P. had always savored playing many different styles of music. In 2005, J.P. left Burning Daylight very amicably and we set about finding a new drummer. Little did we know he would be from Seattle, Washington and that he would be living just two towns away.
Jesse Sprinkle is a music lifer. He’s been a drummer since he was very young, and even toured the country with his highly successful band Poor Old Lu at the tender age of 14. He went on to become a go-to session drummer in Seattle and L.A. and at the time of our first meeting; he was the drummer in another successful band called Dead Poetic. Jesse was a fast friend and an even faster learner. Within a week, he had mastered all of our songs and we had even started working on new material together. It also didn’t hurt that Jesse owned his own recording studio. We immediately began working on demos for our first full-length record, and the future was bright. Dan agreed to produce the album and in June of 2006, we began recording the basic tracks locally and in September, we made the trek to Hoboken, N.J. (Dan’s new hometown) to finish the record.
Making “Whiskey & Romances” was a revelation for me. For the first time, I felt like I could actually refer to myself as a musician, not just a person with a part-time job who rocked on the weekend. Anyone can make a record, especially these days, but making it with someone like Dan in a big city with an actual budget and such amazing musicians was very legitimizing. Maybe I could do this, maybe I could make a living playing music. I wasn’t having any delusions about being on MTV or playing stadiums, but the nagging self doubt that plagues almost any creative person was finally lifting. It certainly hadn’t gone away, but after making the record, I was a singer-songwriter/musician first, a part-time worker/anything to pay the rent guy second. Once again though, more change lay ahead.
Just a couple of months before the record’s release, longtime bass player and founding member Adam Jester decided he needed a break. Adam left the band but had (and always will have) an open invitation to come back anytime he’d like, whether it’s playing bass, guitar, singing backup or as our “band stylist” (a position I know he’s been eyeing for quite some time). Adam has since joined me several times both on stage and in the studio and I look forward to working with him many times in the future. At this junction though, we needed a new bass player. Lucky for us, I knew an amazing one named Tim Mroz and even luckier for us, Tim wanted to join the band.
Our first show with Tim was a last minute show at the Mercury Lounge in NYC. Tim had about a week or two to prepare but nailed all of his parts and immediately joined in the “fun” of Jesse and I’s somewhat crude, somewhat dark sense of humor. Tim is one of the most level headed, even keeled people I have ever had the pleasure to know, and his musical abilities are (I swear I’m not overstating this) world class. Tim does not play on “Whiskey & Romances” but his stunning mug shows up on the inside cover of the album…a little ploy to show band unity and let’s face it, boost sales with “the ladies”.
The record “Whiskey & Romances” came out in April 2007 and did very well out of the gate, with strong sales in Europe and some humbling critical acclaim as well. It felt great to have a document of my songs, something I could have forever, no matter what lay ahead. Burning Daylight was my baby though, and my band mates knew it. As the recording of our 2nd record approached, I knew it was time for a change. Jesse felt the same way and decided to leave the band shortly before recording began. Tim, while upset that Jesse was leaving, agreed to soldier on. At this point however, I felt as though I didn’t want the band to become a joke, a revolving door of musicians run by a benevolent dictator. To me, it seemed like it’d be a more honest, more open situation if the new record was put out by “Nick Young” rather than “Burning Daylight”.
Luckily for me, both Jesse and Tim are the rhythm section on my new record and both continue to perform with me as often as possible (and are still great friends). Bands, like relationships, like friendships, grow apart. Getting three adults on the same page is difficult enough, but doing it in the often times chaotic world of rock and roll is damn near impossible. We played a ton of shows in the two years after “Whiskey & Romances” came out and even did a little touring in the Northeast, but, we never quite went “all in”. The reasons for that aren’t exactly exciting or surprising. Jesse has 4 kids, a wife and a thriving recording studio. Tim has a fantastic job as a computer programmer and plays in several other bands. I, well, I always wanted to do as much as possible to further our career but I suppose I never really gave it everything I had or took any real chances.
I was the guy at the wedding who, trying not to look stupid, only dances half-heartedly during “The Locomotion”. Everyone knows that just by dancing (especially if you’re a bad dancer, like myself); you are running the risk of looking stupid. You only look more awkward and ridiculous by going half way. Going all out is your only shot at glory, whether it’s gloriously stupid or gloriously “funky”, at least you took a stab at being glorious. Anyway, shortly before I decided to go solo, I made the choice to not only go after the glory, but to do it on my own terms. I could no longer use my band mate’s priorities as an excuse for my inaction. I might go down in flames as a spectacular failure, but I will have given it my all and no one will ever be able to say that I didn’t give it a shot.
Whew, I’ll get down from my overly sentimental soapbox now; it’s got me gasping for air.
So there you go, that’s my little story about my band. Burning Daylight has been a lot of different things to a lot of different people but at the end of the day, it was really just me and everyone else who’s been a part of the band having fun and trying to live out our rock and roll daydreams. I think we did just that.
-Nick Young (June 2010)
