Blues Traveler

Event Details

After selling millions of records and logging thousands of miles on the road, GRAMMY award-winning band Blues Traveler continue to chart new musical directions evident on their upcoming record Blow Up The Moon. A clever collaboration between various artists, Blow Up The Moon sees Blues Traveler keep an open-minded perspective on making music and enlists an eclectic mix of songwriters influenced by the band's remarkable 25+ year career.

Blow Up the Moon is the first collaborative album that Blues Traveler has ever made. Prior to these sessions, it was rare for the band to have someone else perform on their songs and even more rare to have anyone outside the band write with them. This process was a unique and successful experience for each of these artists who each found new depths and energy in their writing and performance. Blow Up The Moon is an exciting collaboration featuring a range of artists across the spectrum, representing country, pop, reggae and hip-hop.

"We wanted to experiment with co-writing since we usually try to do everything in-house, in this misguided homage to The Beatles," says singer John Popper. Blow Up The Moon allowed Blues Traveler to expand their musical palette while holding the foundation of their distinct and explosive brand of rock. "We found quality writers to see what they could bring to us as a band, and also people who could see our strengths, something that's hard to see for yourself."

Blow Up The Moon features collaborating artists Thompson Square, Plain White T's, 3OH!3, Dirty Heads and Rome Ramirez (Sublime), Hanson, Jewel, Secondhand Serenade, JC Chasez (*NSYNC), Bowling for Soup, New Hollow and Thomas Ian Nicholas.

The concept for Blow Up The Moon came about when the band was commemorating the 20th anniversary of their six-times platinum, award-winning and breakthrough album Four. "Once the idea was put out there, the thing took on a life of its own," says guitarist Chan Kinchla. "We had so much fun reinvigorating our songwriting. This was an organic process that worked."

"Nikki's Prom," which Blues Traveler collaborated on with the Chicago pop-punk band Plain White T's, was brought about through a Twitter conversation. While the groups had not met before, Popper and Plain White T's vocalist Tom Higgenson bonded over the film Kill Bill. "Nikki's Prom" imagines what would happen if the daughter of Uma Thurmans badass assassin showed up at her future high school dance. As drummer Brendan Hill said, "Like with all the bands we worked with, we just hit it off with them very easily. John and Tom holed themselves in a room and the rest of us just worked on key changes and rhythms. We all had the same kind of humor."

Sharing humor and an open-minded perspective on music made the collaboration between Blues Traveler and electronic duo Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte, better known as 3OH!3, work so well. 3OH!3 are represented with two cuts on the disc, "Hurricane" and the title track which also includes contributions from J.C. Chasez (*NSYNC). Keyboardist Ben Wilson says Foreman, "is one of those real grinders who pored over every word all day until he felt we had a real coherent tune. And Sean played an instrument called a guitalele, which looks like a ukulele, but has six strings. When you hear it in this context it has a twangy sound that's just awesome."

Loud & Proud Records will release Blow Up The Moon on both CD and vinyl in North America via RED Distribution (a division of Sony Music Entertainment) and in the rest of the world through earMUSIC. Loud & Proud see Blues Traveler as a relevant artist and the collaborations as exciting partnerships proving the band's versatility.

For more information, please visit the website provided.