NKD Mag - Issue #26 (August 2013)

“I HAD TO WORK TO GET MY CAR, MY CLOTHES, EVERYTHING.” JANA KRAMER

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FEATURES 4 HRVRD 8 MKTO 12 EISLEY 18 JONATHAN JACKSON

24 NATALIE DREYFUSS

50 A DREAM 2 BELIEVE

28 DEVON WERKHEISER

52 ANARBOR

32 NICK SANTINO & THE NORTHERN WIND

56 3OH!3 62 WE CAME AS ROMANS

EDITORIAL 16 OP-ED

NKD NAKED MAGAZINE

17 PLAYLIST

36 NAKED EYE

PUBLISHERS

SENIOR EDITOR

WRITERS

Ariella Mastroianni Catherine Powell

Amanda Randone

Tara DeVincenzo Clarisse Hansard Alex Lane Stacy Magallon Ariella Mastroianni Christine O’Dea Shina Patel Stephanie Petit Catherine Powell

MANAGING EDITOR Nicola Pring

PHOTOGRAPHER Catherine Powell

DESIGNER Ariella Mastroianni

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Elizabeth Goold

COPY CHIEF Nicola Pring

COPY EDITORS Tatiana Baez Jenna Ross

HRVRD

Words by Tara DeVincenzo Âť Photos by Catherine Powell

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THE SIMPLE NEED TO CREATE MUSIC WITH TALENTED PEOPLE WAS enough fuel for guitarist Jason Shaw to transform his talent into a career.

The Charlotte, N.C. native knew he wanted to perform, and knew he had to take risks to do it well. As a teenager he left his garage band days behind in search of fame-worthy band mates and, after years of hard work, he’s now on tour and signed to a record label with four other guys in the experimental rock band HRVRD. When Jason began scouting musicians to perform with in 2004, he had no solid path to follow other than his desire to start something new. “I’d always played with my friends from high school and I was branching out to get away from my norm,” Jason says.

In college, Jason found new experiences and new people who shared his passion for music. He met guitarist Lee Herrera, who was the first person Jason performed with who would become part of HRVRD. As a pair, they began searching for the other people to round out their ideal band.

Jason looked to the Internet to find his band mates. He used a simple message board, which existed “way before Facebook,” as Jason jokes, where musicians could share music with each other and advertise themselves. “We had a drummer at the time and a bassist,” Jason says. “We were looking for a singer and we went to this message board and we saw Jesse [Clasen]’s projects and we were like, ‘This guy looks kinda cool.’”

It was Jesse’s vocals in particular that caught Jason and Lee’s attention. Immediately, they knew he deserved a shot. Jason invited Jesse to play with them, and they found just what they

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HRVRD * had been looking for. “Jesse just started improvising lyrics over a few songs that Lee and I had written,” Jason says. “We played for maybe 10 minutes and we thought, ‘This is the guy.’”

Though Jason and Lee had faith in their new band, their focus was on graduating college and keeping music a hobby.

By the time they were seniors in 2008, they had a collection of songs, and had picked up drummer Tim Cossner. “We were writing with [Tim], we finally felt happy with how things were going,” Jason says. “We were heavier, trying to be experimental bands. We recorded and decided to independently release our EP, Animals, which was a very amateur effort.”

Amateur as it seemed, Jason was determined to get somewhere with his band’s work, and he took on the bulk of it himself. After releasing the EP, he still hadn’t received any calls to book any performances, so he decided to hunt them down himself. “The only way to do anything is to be visible and be all over the place,” he says.

In hopes of putting HRVRD on the radar, Jason sent out what he says was “like thousands of emails,” and in return received thousands of denials. With graduation approaching, Jason knew that there was no time to slow down. “If we want to make this life we gotta make this life,” he says of that time.

With much persistence and many hard knocks, he finally booked a few shows.

Though Jason and the band were proud of their efforts, they decided this wasn’t how they wanted to proceed in the future. “Anything that happened, we were like, ‘People have to approach us,’ Jason says. “Otherwise, [if] they don’t want to work with us if they don’t approach us.”

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“THE ONLY WAY TO DO ANYTHING IS TO BE VISIBLE AND BE ALL OVER THE PLACE.” JASON SHAW

As HRVRD progressed, they started getting recognized.

At a show at home in North Carolina, they got a boost they needed for studio time and tours. A representative from Equal Vision Records was present at the show, and Jason decided to help endorse another band playing that night.

Instead, Equal Vision’s interest was in HRVRD. The band signed a contract on the day they reported to the studio in January 2012 to begin working on their new record, From The Bird’s Cage (2013).

With their label contract secured, Jason had his heart set on getting the band out there with a great record. “We didn’t want to put the record out and not have a good tour lined up to put it out with,” Jason says. “I was just like, “To hell with it, we’re going back on the road. Somebody let me know when we can put this record out.”

Jason got the band back on the road without a booking agent. As the touring process began, the band was hit with another roadblock. Their drummer, Tim, wanted to start a family, which meant he had to leave the band. HRVRD soon found a replacement in Matt Lynch, who was not only adequate but an ideal drummer for the band. “Matt is the only drummer I know who matches up with Tim at all,” Jason says.

With a full band and an album in the works, HRVRD were given the green light from the label to make their project completely their own. “[Equal Vision] was like, ‘Do what you do, make a record. I trust you,’” Jason says.

In making their record, emphasis was placed on which

songs would make the cut. Jason and the band had to sacrifice some of their favorite songs for the record because they knew they couldn’t include all of them. “It was so tough. It was so damn tough,” Jason says. In the end, the band made a decision that got most of their songs out without having them all on the record: they made B-sides, which include a song called “Parts and Labor.”

“That is an awesome song, we love playing it,” Jason says.

“But it was just different than what we wanted the record to sound like.”

They had difficulty finding a place for several other songs as well. “There’s another B-side we wanted to put out too that’s probably my favorite song that we recorded while we were in the studio,” Jason says. “It’s darker than the record. I feel like the record is pretty dark ... but probably the darkest song we ever recorded was ‘New Information.’ I knew some people were going to just skip that song and some people were going be like, ‘Why are you putting this song right on the record, like right in the middle of the frickin’ record?’”

Even with the possibility of negative responses, Jason and the rest of the band stayed true from the start as to what type of reception they anticipated from listeners. Now that they have a clear idea for themselves, new opportunities, including a 10-city headlining tour, keep popping up. Jason is eager to accept them. After all, he just wants to tour so he can continue to promote the band. “I want to be on the road till the end of the year,” he says. NKD

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MKTO

MKTO STANDS FOR “MISFIT KIDS AND TOTAL OUTCASTS,” SO WHEN I’M INTRODUCED TO VOCALISTS MALCOLM KELLEY AND TONY OLLER AT THE COLUMBIA RECORDS OFFICE IN NEW YORK CITY, I WONDER WHAT A PAIR OF MISFITS ARE DOING AT AN AWESOME PLACE LIKE THIS. Words by Stacy Magallon » Photos by Catherine Powell The alternative hip-hop group’s schedule has been very go, go, go. After performing for radio station K 104.7’s KFest — the annual music festival at Dutchess Stadium in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. — this day off seems necessary. Malcolm and Tony agree. We take a seat on two couches separated by a coffee table in the middle of a warmly lit hallway. “We’re so far apart,” Malcolm says, noticing the extreme distance between both couches. “We need to be a lot closer.”

After a group effort to push the couches together, Tony shimmies off his leather jacket while Malcolm fiddles with his black fitted hat. Much like their style and musical approach, their personalities are very laid back. Their work ethic, however, is not. For MKTO, the first half of the year has been about getting their name and music out there.

Malcolm and Tony’s roots in the entertainment industry started with acting. When they met on the set of TeenNick’s series Gigantic, the chemistry between them was obvious.

“We had such a bond and shared the same music taste,” Tony says. “I knew we would get along instantly.” During their down time on set, Malcolm and Tony would pop open their MacBooks, sing covers and post them on YouTube. They covered the right songs, including a remix of Chipmunk’s “Champion” featuring Chris Brown. The right people saw them, including two of their current producers, Evan and Eman on Advanced Alternative Media. Gigantic only filmed one season and did not get very far. It did, however, provide a platform for Malcolm and Tony to get their music career started, and they have since stepped into a new arena of performance.

MKTO is a combination of Malcolm and Tony’s initials, but the group name also represents being the odd one out.

Malcolm and Tony’s peers treated them differently because of their early history of acting. Tony, a native of Houston, recalls always being the odd one in the group. “You don’t do acting in Texas,” he says. “I was called a fag throughout high school and got my fair share of hazing.” Malcolm agrees and says, “We’ve come a long way since then.”

As tough as the name-calling may have been, this only pushed the guys to work harder, and the results are finally surfacing. “Music has always been a passion, but I only started taking it more seriously last year,” Malcolm says. “Now I’m 21 years old and I have a plaque for our

single, ‘Thank You.’” The catchy pop-rap track focuses on the current generation of kids and teenagers, and how the choices of past generations influenced their lives. As the first verse goes, “This one right here is for all the drop-outof-schoolers, the future cougars, the Mary Jane abusers.”

MKTO consider it to be an anthem for the underdogs, and the song went triple platinum in Australia. The overwhelming Australian reaction was not expected, but Malcolm and Tony aren’t complaining.

MKTO are now focusing on bringing that overseas accomplishment to the U.S. Though their status in the U.S. is still on the rise, Malcolm and Tony are ok with the level NKDMAG.COM

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“IF ANYONE GIVES US A SHOT TO GET OUR NAME OUT THERE, WE’RE GOING TO TAKE IT.” TONY OLLER

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MKTO * sound as “organic.” Fans can expect versatility in content like club songs and songs about heartbreak, and collaborations with Ne-Yo and Simple Plan. “We have a little bit of everything,” Malcom says. MKTO’s music attracts listeners of all ages, especially young teenage girls. Malcolm and Tony don’t necessarily consider that their ideal demographic. They don’t care if a fan is two years old, or 70. If a fan is enjoying the music, he or she is part of the audience MKTO wants to reach. “We’re not into this for the screaming 16-year-olds,” Malcolm says, grinning. “Even though we do enjoy that.”

At the end of the day, the band mates’ love of creating and producing trumps any number of screaming fans. Tony is completely content with what he’s doing as long as he can pay his bills and buy a burger from In-N-Out twice a week. “And a new car would be nice too,” he says, smiling.

MKTO are only getting started. “When we stop loving it, we’ll stop doing it,” Tony says simply. They may have been a pair of misfit kids, but with the help of music, these total outcasts have finally found where they fit in. NKD *

of fan recognition they’ve received so far. “This one time, Tony and I were driving around and one girl pulled up next to us and asked if we were in MKTO,” Malcolm says, laughing at the memory. “She just wanted to tell us that she loved us.” MKTO hope to make more tour dates and even more music — anything that gets them recognized. “If anyone gives us a shot to get our name out there, we’re going to take it,” Tony says. The guys take each opportunity seriously.

At KFest they experienced a technical problem with their microphones, and their aggravation was noticeable. “I was so mad,” Tony says, clenching his fists at the memory. “We only have a certain amount of time to win [the audience] over and I don’t want anyone to think we’re messing up.” Malcolm agrees.

“We’re still learning,” he says of performing live. “But more importantly, we want to make sure our fans are having a good time.”

After spending a year in the studio, MKTO hope to have their new record and an EP on shelves by the end of 2013. MKTO love that their sound is “all over the place.” They enjoy the art of combining genres, especially R&B, pop and ballads. Tony refers to their

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EISLEY

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Words by Stephanie Petit Photos by Catherine Powell

SHERRI DUPREE-BEMIS HAS ALWAYS KEPT THINGS IN THE FAMILY. Over 15 years ago, she formed the rock band Eisley with her older sister Chauntelle, brother Weston, cousin Garron and her younger sister Stacy, who was only 8 years old at the time. Her father, Boyd, is also her manager.

This year the band has released Currents, their fourth studio album, and they’re on tour with Equal Vision Records label-mates Say Anything, the band for which Sherri’s husband Max Bemis is the lead singer. Their five-month-old daughter Lucy is also joining them. “I take her in with her little noise-canceling headphones and she watches her dad playing after us,” Sherri says of Lucy. “It’s amazing.”

Sherri loves being able to visit so many different places with her daughter, and she says Lucy enjoys life on the road.

Lucy isn’t even the only baby on tour. “My sisters and I all had kids around the same time so we’ve got three more,” she says.

“They’re really chill and just really good babies. They’re having a great time.”

But bringing four young kids into the mix was not always easy. Before leaving for this tour, the band feared they might have to cancel their appearances after a reservation problem with their touring vehicle left them without transportation.

“There was no way to travel with our kids and leaving them was not an option because we’re all nursing mothers and whatnot, so we can’t just leave our kids for six weeks at a time,” Sherri says. “We just put the record out and we wanted to tour it. So we just were like, ‘Ok, we need to figure out how to do this.’ You can’t just jump in the van and strap four babies in the car seat for hours and hours.”

After searching online, they found a few RVs to use, and Sherri shares a bed with her husband on Say Anything’s tour bus. Despite some of the difficulties involved in touring with her family, Sherri says she feels lucky to be able to work so closely with them.

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EISLEY * “It seems crazy that my husband and I are both in bands so between all the touring that we do, it seemed like it wouldn’t be ideal, but it works out so [well] especially now that we’re on the same label because we have all the same people working for us and helping plan our tours and we can really coordinate to where we can mostly spend time together and be with Lucy,” Sherri says.

While she enjoys the time on the road with her family, Sherri is also excited to promote Currents, which the band released at the end of May. This was the first album they completed in their own studio and on their own time. The band was originally signed to Warner Bros. Records, but since they parted ways with the major label and signed to Equal Vision three years ago, they enjoy creative freedom Sherri says they had never had before. Sherri prefers their relationship with the independent label and thinks it works well with the band, although she sees how major labels are more beneficial for some acts.

“For us, it’s such a small, family-oriented thing and we’re just doing it because we love it,” she says. “Having just the small group of people who work at this label [where] we know everybody and they’re really just passionate about what we do and they love the music, it just makes it so much easier. It’s ideal, for us at least.”

However, with the freedom of an independent label comes more pressure directly on the band. “We are definitely making or breaking ourselves with this record,” Sherri says. “But having that pressure was good because it made us work, there was no slack. We didn’t let anything slide and put 100 percent into every part of every song.”

Sherri worked with her sisters Stacy and Chauntelle to write songs for Currents. Having three songwriters gave the group plenty of material to work with. Each of the girls wrote separately then came together in the studio to narrow down the selections. “Everyone says, ‘I like these songs, I don’t like that song,’ then we decide as a band which songs to work on,” Sherri says. “That’s just always how we’ve done it. It seems to work best for us that way.”

Selecting which songs make their records is usually easy for the band. Decisions are made mainly among the five band members as well as with their father. While Sherri’s experience with record labels has often been that they push their opinions about song choices on a band, Sherri says Equal Vision really trusts the band, and leaves song selections almost always up to them.

“Luckily [the band is] really like minded, so there wasn’t a lot of disagreement as far as picking,” Sherri says. “Everyone listens to the songs and has a pretty good idea of which ones will make a record at the end and sound like a whole project. We haven’t

had a lot of trouble with that as far as the ones that make the final record.”

Eisley received great feedback for the new album from longtime fans and newcomers alike. Sherri says the reaction from both groups is supportive, but appealing to Eisley fans was the main goal.

“My biggest thing when we set out to make this record was I wanted to, if nothing else, make a record that our fans that we already had made through all these years loved, and if we made new fans from it, then that was just a plus.”

When she’s not busy with the band or her baby, Sherri also enjoys doing illustrations. Some of her work has appeared on band merchandise like T-shirts, and as the album art for Currents.

“They told me maybe two weeks before they needed the cover,” Sherri says. “I was about to have a baby, I was due any day, and they were like, ‘By the way, we don’t even have a cover yet. Do you think you could draw something?’”

Sherri says she was stressed about doing the album art because she feared she would have to draw several images and

“WE’RE DEFINITELY MAKING OR BREAKING OURSELVES WITH THIS RECORD.”

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SHERRI DUPREE-BEMIS get approval from the rest of the band, but she listened to the record for inspiration, and the band loved the first drawing she showed them. Her illustration became the cover art for the album.

Sherri plans to take some time off when Eisley’s tour with Say Anything wraps up this summer, but soon it will be back to touring when she hits the road as part of another family project called Perma, an indie-folk band made she created with her husband.

Sherri says Eisley will also start planning a headlining tour around the fall so they can play more of their new record. Right now, she says the band doesn’t really have long-term goals or ideals. They started playing because they love it, and they’re just happy to be able to continue and work together as a family.

“Our biggest thing is always trying to make records that people love and music that people want to come see us play on tour,” Sherri says. “As long as we can keep doing that, we’ve kind of done it and are doing it.” NKD

OP-ED BUCKET LIST: SIGNING THE RECORD DEAL ERIC JONES, MUSIC MANAGER

Not too long ago, I was in a band called The Downtown Fiction. Do you remember the guy playing drums in the back? He had glasses? Well anyway, that was me.

We signed a record deal, toured most of the country, played a few shows overseas, had a song rotating on FM/ XM radio, a music video on MTV and enough free booze to keep me drunk for the next decade. It makes me feel hungover just writing about it. Those were good times and I’ll never forget them. And they all really began as soon as pen hit the paper ... on the first and only record deal I ever signed as an artist.

I remember being 16, watching Drive-Thru Records and Warped Tour DVDs with a few buddies thinking to myself, “Man, how cool would it be to sign a record deal?!”

Fast forward three years: a few drum lessons, countless rehearsals, two consecutively awful bands, countless musicians and four high school talent show championships later, I found myself with a pretty good band. We logged 50 plus hours a week on social media and we circulated 10,000 promotional flyers at regional shows.

Before I knew it, I was finally sitting at a conference room table, signing my first record deal.

I had fantasized about that moment for years. I imagined sitting in a glitzy New York City office, record executives in their fancy suits crowded around, even photographers taking pictures, documenting the occasion forever.

I imagined doing it in one swift move of my pen, as if I had been born to sign that deal. In slow motion, I’d look up at the record executives, my manager, and then to the sky and smile to the record label gods.

But no. In reality it wasn’t all that cool. Here’s what really happened: I sat down in some random office on the label’s floor, briefly looked at the contract, signed my signature in several different places, initialed the bottom of each page (several dozen), and that was that.

I thought signing a record deal would change everything.

Sure, we had a good run, much thanks to the label, but really, it came down to our songs and our consistent hard work, which, in the end, unfortunately didn’t quite deliver.

I think a big misconception among young bands is that signing to a label is the end-all be-all. That it is the pinnacle of your career. But here’s the truth: at best, it’s a platform to build off of.

I wish someone would’ve told that to me when I had first signed. I hate to say it, but I got a little lazy. The entire band did. We waited for the label to make us rich and famous, as if the label could churn out the hits, put a few zeros in our bank accounts, and afford me my mansion in Bali.

But that didn’t happen. And eventually I left the band. Not because we didn’t become rich and famous, but because as I grew up, I started to have other aspirations. One of these aspirations was to get a band signed, this time with me as the manager.

I’m proud to say I just recently did that with the band I manage, From Indian Lakes. It’s funny to think that I was more excited representing a band getting signed than being in the band getting signed. Why? I know a lot more now. I grew up. As a person, a former band dude and as a young manager — I’ve matured. I’ve eaten shit and it tasted horrible. But now, I’m in a position representing an incredibly talented band that can avoid a lot of the shit I ate. I mean, what’s worse than eating regurgitated shit? Nothing comes to mind.

They signed their record deal earlier this week with a really great label called Triple Crown Records, and in doing so, many of them fulfilled a life-long dream. The same evening they signed, I jumped on the phone with the entire band.

Here is what I told them: This changes nothing at all. Sure, we can cross it off the bucket list of things we wanted to accomplish in life, but now we need to work harder. We need to take full advantage of the opportunity, exposure and resources the label is providing, but we need to continue to scratch and claw our way to the top.

Knowing how humble and hardworking these guys have been from the start, I’m confident that they understood.

Some final advice to all the young bands out there: Be excited about the idea of signing a record deal if that’s what motivates you to work and write the best songs you possibly can. But trust me, signing that coveted record deal isn’t the key to your success. You are the key.

And any success you have, in the end, is on you. NKD

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THE PLAYLIST C

Megan Mace of Megan and Liz takes us through her current top tracks.

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TRACKS 1. “I CHOOSE U” - TIMEFLIES

6. “WASTING ALL THESE TEARS” - CASSADEE POPE

2. “FOLLOW YOUR ARROW” - KACEY MUSGRAVES

7. “MADE IN THE USA” - DEMI LOVATO

3. “ACAPELLA” - KARMIN

8. “LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE” - THE SUMMER SET

4. “HOT DAMN” - IVY LEVAN

9. “I WANT CRAZY” - HUNTER HAYES

5. “BAREFOOT BLUE JEAN NIGHT” - JAKE OWEN

10. “CRASH MY PARTY” - LUKE BRYAN

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JONATHAN JACKSON Words & Photos by Catherine Powell

JONATHAN JACKSON IS HAVING A CRISIS: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE TO PARK HIS BAND’S VAN AND TRAILER. He and his indie band Enation are performing less than a block away from Times Square at B.B. King Blues Club in New York City later tonight. After quickly explaining the situation and apologizing for being a little late, he shakes my hand and asks how my day is going. We sit down in the green room at the venue, and Jonathan places his phone on the arm of his chair.

“Just in case someone calls about parking,” he says. This is my first clue that Jonathan knows how to multitask.

Jonathan was born in Orlando, Fla., but he only spent six weeks there before his family moved to Washington state. He spent the first 10 years of his life there and first became interested in music while living in Washington, but it was a family vacation to Universal Studios in Los Angeles in 1992 that sparked his interest in acting. Jonathan and his older brother (actor Richard Lee Jackson) became fascinated by how movies were made, and they began taking acting classes when they returned home. The family soon moved to L.A. and the brothers began auditioning. Jonathan was only 11 at the time. His first major role was as series regular, Lucky Spencer, on General Hospital — a role he played from 1993 to 1999. Following his departure from the show, Jonathan appeared in various films including Tuck Everlasting and Insomnia before returning to General Hospital in 2009.

Jonathan began playing and writing music after moving to L.A. He made home recordings with his dad, but it was just a hobby for him until he was 16. He then decided he wanted to pursue music in addition to acting. “I wasn’t sure how to do that because my acting life was so demanding at the time,” Jonathan says. He kept at music for years before eventually forming Enation with his brother in 2002. They’ve put out a few records and had some songs in movies and TV shows, but balancing music and acting became much easier when Jonathan booked a role on the ABC series Nashville.

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JONATHAN JACKSON *

“It’s the perfect project,” Jonathan says of the show, which premiered last fall and began filming its second season mid-July. Jonathan plays Avery Barkley, an aspiring musician with a bit of a bad-boy complex. Throughout the season, Avery matured to the point where viewers can start to believe he has a heart. “I really like playing characters that have contradictions,” Jonathan says. “Watching people struggle with choices is the most fascinating thing about storytelling.” Jonathan chose to portray a sense of struggle in Avery while his character was in an unlikeable state. “I wanted there to be this tension. Like, it’s not easy for him to be a jerk,” he says.

The show’s season finale left a lot of plotlines open, and Avery’s story is no exception. But Jonathan tries to step away from the storyline instead of making decisions about what he wants to happen to his character. “In the end my opinion is irrelevant,” he says with a laugh. He would rather walk in and make the best of what he’s given, and at the time of our interview he hasn’t seen one script for season two. However, one thing he is expecting is more honest, vulnerable songs by Avery. In the beginning of the first season Avery played much “cooler” music as Jonathan puts it. “He was more aware of himself. Sarcastic,” he says. Toward the end Avery began to show a more soulful side, which gave Jonathan an incredible opportunity to showcase his own music.

“I REALLY LIKE PLAYING CHARACTERS THAT HAVE CONTRADICTIONS. WATCHING PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH CHOICES IS THE MOST FASCINATING THING ABOUT STORYTELLING.” JONATHAN JACKSON Some of the best songwriters in country music contribute songs to Nashville, so Jonathan was thrilled when one of his own songs made the cut: a song called “The Morning of the Rain.” “There’s a huge pool of songs they can pick from, so it was really cool to get my own on as well,” Jonathan says.

He recorded with producer T Bone Burnett, which had been a dream of his for a long time. “I sent them a batch of songs that I had already written and they really fit with Avery,” he says. Jonathan’s character is more of a rock star than a country star, which leaves the door open for more of Jonathan’s own songs to make it on the show.

Whether or not his songs will be showcased on Nashville doesn’t stop Jonathan from constantly writing with Enation. The band has remained unsigned for the entire length of their career — and that’s on purpose. On Nashville, Avery found himself in a situation where his sound was being controlled by a record label, which is something Jonathan has been able to avoid with his own music. “I think every artist experiments with the balance between commercial and accessible, and fully expressing their artistic side,” Jonathan says.

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JONATHAN JACKSON *

Though music is a huge part of Jonathan’s life and his Nashville schedule is extremely demanding, one thing takes priority over everything: his family. Jonathan married his wife Lisa in 2002, and the couple has three kids: Caleb (10), Adora (8) and Titus Gabriel (2). “They’re very musical,” Jonathan says of his kids. “I performed with my daughter at the Grand Ole Opry.” He’s happy his kids enjoy music, but doesn’t force the path on them. “Ultimately, beyond what they do, I want them to see life from a perspective that’s more than mercenary,” Jonathan says.

Jonathan’s own adolescence was more complicated than most, given he was acting on a popular television show at the age most kids start middle school. “It was difficult [for] the first three years,” he says. “[That age] is difficult for anybody, but you throw some recognition and fame into it and it becomes more difficult.” General Hospital was in its heyday when Jonathan appeared on the show in the early ’90s, and people recognized him everywhere he went. “It was tough for me to process as a kid,” he says. His parents worked hard to keep Jonathan and his brother grounded through their fame, and after the first few years things became easier. “I started to realize that it wasn’t about me,” Jonathan says.

“I THINK EVERY ARTIST EXPERIMENTS WITH THE BALANCE BETWEEN COMMERCIAL AND ACCESSIBLE, AND FULLY EXPRESSING THEIR ARTISTIC SIDE.” JONATHAN JACKSON

Now, at 31, Jonathan is pretty much used to the recognition that comes with his job. “People write songs, make music, write screenplays and act to communicate,” he says. “If no one is there on the receiving end it’s a little bit pointless.” He’s come to understand that without the fans and the recognition, whether it’s from Nashville or Enation, he wouldn’t have a job.

“I’m very grateful, that’s not lost on me,” he says.

Though he’s become somewhat of an expert at managing several things at once, like his parking crisis and this interview, he’s learned to prioritize his family and his work. With season two of currently filming, Jonathan doesn’t have much time to record his own music, but that’s ok with him for right now. “I couldn’t have asked for a better fit,” he says. “I’m very happy right now.” Then his phone rings with someone handling the van situation on the other end, and he’s visibly stressed again. But if his 20-year career and 11-year marriage are any evidence, I think he’ll figure it out. He seems to be pretty good at that. NKD

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NATALIE DREYFUSS Words by Alex Lane » Photos by Catherine Powell

Hair and MakeUP BY CAT WHITE

AT JUST OVER 5 FEET TALL, 26-YEAROLD NATALIE DREYFUSS DOESN’T SEEM TO BE AN IMPOSING CHARACTER. BUT THE RISING ACTRESS IS MUCH MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. Born in Los Angeles to wardrobe stylist Kathy Kann and actor Lorin Dreyfuss, the younger brother of famed film star Richard Dreyfuss, Natalie is no stranger to life in the entertainment industry. She was eager to perform from an early age, and discovered the discipline and foundation of ballet as an outlet.

At 14, Natalie dropped out of high school to pursue a career in dance. She moved across the country to study dance at both The Rock School in Pennsylvania and the American Ballet Theatre in New York City.

One year later, she left dance due to an injury. With her life headed in a different direction, she moved back to the West Coast, got her GED certificate and began taking acting classes to develop her skills. Natalie’s transition from dancer to actor took time. Instead of jumping right in to casting offices, Natalie chose to study the field first. “I thought, ‘[I] should probably be good at this before [I] go out and do it,’” she says. She enrolled in the Joanne Baron/D.W. Brown School, The Actors Spot and The Berg Studios to study the craft. Her first role out of school was as Sophie Stagner on the Emmy-nominated TV series Burn Notice.

Switching to acting is an experience she is now grateful for because her life is more like what she wants it to be. “I’m just really happy that my life turned out that way because dance was like a Black Swan nightmare experience, and acting is a lot more of what I love and a lot more fulfilling,” Natalie says.

Since she broke into acting, Natalie has guest starred on a number of television shows, including Life, The Shield, Lie To Me, Weeds, New Girl, House and True Blood. She was also a series regular on Lifetime’s Rita Rocks, and more recently appeared on ABC’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager where she played Chloe Boykewich, a teenager with a twisted past who becomes the adopted sister of main character Ben Boykewich.

Chloe, whose past includes sex trafficking and prostitution, was a challenging role for Natalie. “Just because I wasn’t a prostitute doesn’t mean I haven’t gone through hard times,” Natalie says of her efforts to relate to the character. “I really wanted to make her a fun character, despite the fact that she had such a dark past.”

Her stint on Secret Life has been a great experience for Natalie. “The writers and producers on that show were just incredibly welcoming to me,” she says. “Everyone was just super, super nice.” But it was her role on Rita Rocks that gave Natalie a taste of her passion for television. The series was a two-season sitcom that aired live once a week. The sense of family she was able to establish and the thrill of filming live was

“JUST BECAUSE I WASN’T A PROSTITUTE DOESN’T MEAN I HAVEN’T GONE THROUGH HARD TIMES.” NATALIE DREYFUSS exciting for Natalie. “Acting in front of a live audience is what I would aspire to do for the rest of my life. It’s so much fun, and its a lot faster paced,” she says. “Doing live work, you have to be on it, be good at what you do and be able to do it quickly. I like that pressure.”

Natalie is inspired by shows like Friends and Will & Grace because she aspires to be part of something iconic and long lasting. “I watch I Love Lucy every single day,” Natalie says.

“That’s like, my obsession. That life is such a dream life to me.

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“I CONSIDER MYSELF A SMART PERSON, JUST INCREDIBLY UNDEREDUCATED.” NATALIE DREYFUSS 26

too, but if I was ‘stuck on a sitcom’ for the rest of my life, I’d be thrilled,” Natalie says.

While she aims to work on a long-term sitcom, Natalie is still learning new things through her endeavors into television dramas and thrillers. Working on HBO’s True Blood, she says, was intense, mostly because the premise of the show requires 16 to 18 hours of filming at a time, as well as a nocturnal lifestyle. “You’re living a vampire life,” Natalie says. “When the sun comes up you go home. It’s a really interesting life, and I felt really lonely by the end of shooting because I hadn’t seen my friends. That backwards schedule is really hard, so I definitely have empathy for the people that do it every week.”

Now that she has wrapped filming with True Blood, Natalie is on what she calls her “hiatus time,” during which she can focus on her other interests and hobbies. Besides photography, makeup and visiting with friends, Natalie says one of her passions is teaching young kids.

Her love for little kids brought her to teach in a preschool for a few years when she was younger. “I dropped out of high school because I was dancing, and when I came home, I wanted to do something that was just for me, just for my heart,” Natalie says. “So I walked into a preschool and said, ‘I’m really good with kids, can I come and try and work here?’ and I was there for two years.”

Now Natalie is able to translate her experience dealing with little kids into her daily life, and to some extent, her career. She says that teaching little kids and learning how to interact with

NATALIE DREYFUSS * them has shaped who she is and how she works with others. “I have a much easier time in life because I see everyone as giant toddlers, and I know how to deal with toddlers very well,” she says.

While she loved being a teacher to kids at such a formative stage in development, Natalie was not one for academia herself.

“I consider myself a smart person, just incredibly undereducated,” she says. “I was just never really able to pursue that as much as I was in the arts.”

Instead, she has chosen to follow her passions and to learn and develop in unique ways. She found her love for academia, not as a pupil, but as a teacher of children, and hopes to develop that going forward. In furthering her career, she hopes that she will be able to support her other passions, and she hopes to use her career to give back to the community. “I would love to have enough funds to open up a really amazing preschool, to be able to contribute like that because it’s such a formative time,” Natalie says. “Being around it for a number of years, I knew it was really important to me.”

Other than her dream of opening a preschool, Natalie does not set any career goals for herself. “I think if you set a goal for yourself in the end, you are working toward that end goal and missing out on a lot along the way,” she says. “I try to really enjoy the process, and not any end goal at all.” NKD

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Hair and MakeUP BY CAT WHITE

DEVON WERKHEISER Too often, successful child actors have trouble finding work as adults, and end their professional careers when they grow up. That can’t be said for Devon Werkheiser, the star of Nickelodeon’s Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, a hit series from 2004 to 2007.

Devon, now 22, works to fight the child actor trap by balancing his acting career with a growing music career that has given him a chance to find his voice.

Words by Shina Patel » Photos by Catherine Powell

ON GROWING UP Devon was born in Georgia, and he had a relatively normal life until he started his career at age 10. “I have an older sister, couple parents, as a lot of kids do,” Devon says of his childhood. Devon grew up watching movies. “Around 5 years old or 6 years old I saw Ace Ventura and started imitating and doing impressions of [him],” he says. “Ace Ventura and Austin Powers are kind of what got me into acting.

Some people say The Godfather. Nah, it was Ace Ventura and Austin Powers.” Devon started doing impressions when he was 6 and after his father realized it was “not normal” he started acting and started taking improv classes in Georgia.

Four years later, his acting and improv lessons paid off when he booked his first real movie gig, a role in the film We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson. Devon played Gibson’s son, a very small role but nonetheless, it was the catalyst that led him to move to Los Angeles in search of more roles.

“I started coming to L.A. to act,” Devon says. His trips to Hollywood paid off when he booked his first major role as

Ned Bigby on Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, which first aired in 2003 and became a regular series the following year.

When Devon returned to Georgia while shooting the show, he realized his career changed his home life. “Going back to Georgia was weird,” Devon says. “I knew kids from elementary school on, I’ve known kids there my whole life and … I’d go back and a lot of them would treat me different.

Not that it was bad, but it was just different. I was really sad about that because I’m coming back and all I want is to be normal and hang out. It was a sad loss of a special place and time in my heart, Georgia. I didn’t fit in the same way anymore.” Devon adds that he never goes back to Georgia because his parents have moved out to California with him and they have no reason to visit. “I miss it. I miss the South,” Devon says. “There’s no reason for me to go back down except for nostalgia.”

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DEVON WERKHEISER *

ON ACTING

ON MUSIC

Devon spent what would have been his middle school years on the set of show that took place in a middle school. “The great thing about Ned’s was that there were 16 kids [in] the cast and we were all basically the same age,” Devon says. “My middle school years were on this fake middle school set with a bunch of kids. We definitely had a lot more freedom and a lot more responsibility. We had our homework and our hours of school, but at the same time we had to make the show. That was a weird thing at 13, walking on a set and being important.” But like anything in life, starring at a TV show at a young age was a learning experience for Devon. “I learned how to talk to adults because you’re interacting with adults way more than you would be if you were at a regular middle school,” he says. “You kind of learn how to speak like an adult.

It worked for me.”

Devon had high hopes for more roles when Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide ended in 2007, but he soon faced a major reality check. Many casting directors wouldn’t take him seriously because of his Nickelodeon role. “It doesn’t help in most [casting] rooms,” Devon says. “They’re like, ‘Oh, Nickelodeon, whatever. You can’t act.’” Devon was able to work with an acting coach he calls “amazing” who helped him break down his child acting and grow as a professional actor.

Since Ned’s ended, Devon has been in numerous indie films, the 2013 horror film The Wicked, the CBS drama Criminal Minds and the last season of the ABC Family hit Greek.

Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide gave Devon an opportunity to get into the music world. He started playing guitar with the other kids on set and was intrigued by the idea of making his own music. Unfortunately, Devon had a rough start in the music business, and he says his experience wasn’t what he hoped it would be. “Music [is] something that I really love, and when it became about being a business and doing it to fit into something, it really hurt my soul,” he says.

“I backed off music for a while, in terms of the business part of it.” Devon found comfort in writing rock songs and playing by himself. Last year he recorded and self-produced some of his songs, and was able to finish his first EP, titled I Am, within six months. “It was the most fun I’ve ever had, making music and the most learning, cause I have never really been behind the [sound] board,” he says. “It was so much learning and it was so fun. I created something I’m proud of. Listening to I Am, it sounds like me. And I’m proud of that.” The songs on I Am are self reflective and centered on finding yourself. “[The songs] are more about finding my way in life,” Devon says. “Writing songs to make sense of the world, not only for me, but for people who are listening. What am I doing here? Who am I? How can I move through this world with love and courage and integrity? And how do I face my fears?”

ON THE FUTURE Devon has big plans for his future in music. He says he may not be able to do a headlining tour in the near future because he is a full-time actor, but he hopes to be a supporting act so he can get touring experience. For now he plans to play shows in L.A., shoot a few music videos, promote I Am and write new music. No matter what his future holds, Devon just wants to keep making music. “I’m making it up as I go along,” he says. “I am happy to be creating music and getting it out there on my own terms. NKD

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NICK SANTINO & THE NORTHERN WIND

Words by Stacy Magallon » Photos by Catherine Powell

IN 2006 Nick Santino started a musical project called A Rocket to the Moon in Braintree, Mass. At the time, his method for music making was very do-it-yourself. Seven years and several records later, he’s starting over. Nick is beginning to tackle a new project and a new sound, but with the same DIY method in mind.

“I didn’t want to do the whole college thing,” Nick says. Playing in bands throughout high school made music was a passion he didn’t want to let slip through his fingers.

Using cheap, downloadable programs, he began recording a bunch of electronic sounds on his computer after he graduated from high school. As he learned how to properly navigate these programs, he honed his skills and began posting his creations on Myspace a year later.

With some help from his friends, Nick managed to set up several tours in the Northeast. He eventually got in contact with a friend from Phoenix who managed pop-rock band The Maine. He showed interest in managing Nick. After touring, playing acoustically and sharing vans in order to get from state to state, Nick caught the attention of record label Fueled by Ramen in 2008. By then, A Rocket to the Moon was already a full band consisting of Eric Halvorsen (bass), Justin Richards (lead guitar) and Andrew Cook (drums). ARTTM signed with Fueled by Ramen that summer and released their debut EP, Greetings From… in October.

Nick isn’t complaining about the opportunities he’s had or the stamps in his passport — he has traveled to the U.K., Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil and Australia. “I went from having absolutely nothing to working with some of the biggest producers,” he says.

ARTTM’s most recent full-length, Wild & Free, hit shelves this past March, though the album had been ready for release since March of 2012. By the time Fueled by Ramen finally decided to release the album, the new music already felt old to the band. “The label would give us a release date, then change the date, give us a new date, and then change it,” Nick says with an air of frustration in his voice. “They made a lot of weird promises that didn’t really go through. It was a pain in the ass.” On top of everything else, the album art and photos had been finalized at the time the album was originally ready for release. When they put out the record a year later, the photos were already old as well. “I would look at the artwork and say, ‘I’m a year younger in those pictures,’” Nick says. “Nothing felt up to date or recent about it.”

When the album dropped, ARTTM had no plans to tour to promote it. “We didn’t have a set plan, so it was kind of stupid,” Nick says.

Rather than touring, Nick, Eric, Justin and Andrew spent time at home, where they made a big decision. It was time for them to part ways with Fueled by Ramen. The group lost its management at the same time it abandoned the label, a point in the band’s career Nick describes as a “huge headache.” The timing was off for the quartet, and things were no longer going the way they wanted them to. A Rocket to the Moon decided to call it quits for a bit. “Instead of beating a dead horse, we thought it’d be a good idea to go out strong and end on a good note,” Nick says.

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NICK SANTINO & THE NORTHERN WIND * ways was a combination of frustration and the band feeling stagnant, and Nick was not supportive of the direction their music seemed to be going in. “We were stuck in one spot,” he says. “We weren’t progressing, but we weren’t really going backwards either. We needed a pause.” Their label was one of the few reasons their “pause” was much needed. ARTTM did not approve of the way things were being run, and those calls were completely out of their hands. “People see the four of us and assume we’ve got all the power in the world,” Nick says. “They don’t realize there are people in the business with higher power and more say than we [have].”

ARTTM’s sold out farewell show is on Aug. 31 at The Sinclair in Cambridge, Mass. That show will close the book on A Rocket to the Moon for the time being. Though it seems like the end, Nick can already picture a reunion tour somewhere down the road. “We’re all best friends,” he says. “I’m sure the second this ends, we’ll be itching to go back out and do it all over again.”

Nick’s focus is currently on his new project, Nick Santino & The Northern Wind. “It’s a cool name you don’t really hear,” he says, explaining his excitement at the project’s name. “The name has been saved in my iPhone notes for a while now.”

Nick, who has written three records worth of material in the past eight or nine months, is taking complete advantage of his newfound creative control. He categorizes his new sound as very folk and country, with elements of pop. The unheard material didn’t properly fit with ARTTM, but will fit comfortably with The Northern Wind. “I love the artistic freedom and I want to do this on my own for a little while,” Nick says.

“Labels can come in due time. This will be a lot of fun, but also a lot of work that I’m ready for.” His four-song EP, Going Home, was released on iTunes on July 30.

Nick had nobody on his side in 2006, other than his 300-something friends on Myspace. Today, his fan base is bigger, but it’s all a matter of getting new and old fans on board. “Some of them are unsure of what I’m doing because they’re stuck in the past with A Rocket to the Moon,” he says.

“But if they want to hear me make music, I’m going to make music.” Nick is nervous about starting from the bottom, but plans to use what he has learned about the music industry over the past five or six years. Other than using his own experience to help guide his new path, he’s taking advice from old music managers he knows, though he doesn’t want anyone to fill the role of a manger just yet. For now, it’s all on him.

Nick is considering making a move to Nashville sometime next year so he can be involved in the music scene there, which will make songwriting easy for him. He may be a little intimidated by what he’s about to do, but he promises to persevere. “I got myself into this mess, so I gotta keep going,” he says, smiling. “Music is the only thing I want to know.” NKD

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“I LOVE THE ARTISTIC FREEDOM.” NICK SANTINO

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DEMI LOVATO July 17, The River Stage at Penns Landing (Philadelphia, P.A.)

LIL WAYNE July 24, PNC Bank Arts Center (Holmdel, N.J.)

SELENA GOMEZ July 26, Central Park Summerstage (New York, N.Y.)

jana Kramer Words & Photos by Catherine Powell

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JANA KRAMER *

I

T RAINED FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE MONTH OF JULY IN NEW YORK, BUT AS Jana Kramer takes the stage at Jones Beach on a recent Sunday night, there’s not a cloud in sight. She sings through her 25-minute set effortlessly with a huge smile on her face. And why shouldn’t she be smiling?

She’s currently on tour opening for Blake Shelton and her new single “I Hope It Rains” is on heavy rotation on CMT. But when I meet Jana in her hotel room in New York City the following afternoon, I learn that it wasn’t always this easy for her.

When I open the door to her room, Jana is giggling under the white covers of her bed. “Hi!” she says as she climbs out from under the covers. She pauses and checks her phone. “Sorry, there’s some drama going on.” Her bandleader, Jesse Triplett, is in the hospital with appendicitis and missed last night’s show.

But Jana is confident it will work itself out and doesn’t let the situation get her down. She has thick skin.

Jana was born and raised in Michigan with her older brother, Steve. Her father played bass and was constantly performing with various bands around the state, which heavily influenced Jana’s interest in music early on. Her mother wanted to be a country singer and, as Jana says, “didn’t have the guts to do it.”

She encouraged Jana to follow her dreams from the beginning.

Growing up, Jana almost exclusively listened to country music, with the exception of some ’80s rock. I note that Michigan isn’t what one thinks of when they hear county music and Jana smirks. “Keith Urban is from Australia, Shania Twain is from Canada. That’s what I always tell people,” she says.

Jana’s parents divorced when she was 14 and she began working right away to help out. “I had to work to get my car, my clothes, everything,” she says. She worked as a waitress for her entire high school career and always knew she wanted to go into entertainment in the future. “I wanted to be a singer but I was too afraid to pursue it,” she says. After graduating from high school she left Michigan for New York and spent six months there before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue acting. After a few years in L.A. she booked a role on One Tree Hill in 2009 and spent three seasons with the show playing Alex Dupre, a model and actress with a cocaine addiction who finds herself in Tree Hill, N.C.. “I had some breaks out [in L.A.] but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do,” Jana says.

Fear led her to California in the first place. She knew she wanted to entertain, but needed something to hide behind.

Acting was the solution to that. “In auditions, they’re not telling you ‘no,’ they’re telling the character ‘no,’” Jana says. She felt that rejection in acting was out of her hands, whereas with music it would be more of a personal jab. One Tree Hill seemed like the perfect place to make the transition from acting to singing.

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“I WANTED TO BE A SINGER BUT I WAS TOO AFRAID TO PURSUE IT.” JANA KRAMER

“I knew that show offered a lot of opportunity for new artists,” Jana says. She had been writing in Nashville with some songwriters during her hiatus from the show and brought some songs to One Tree Hill’s creator purely for his opinion. He never gave Jana his formal opinion, but he turned Alex into a singer.

“I didn’t even realize it until I was reading the script and just started freaking out!” she says. It was the good kind of freak out, though. The response her music got from One Tree Hill fans eventually opened the door for her pursue music full time, and she left the show two episodes into the final season.

Her first record, which was released last June, is self-titled, and it showcases her vocal abilities more than her songwriting.

“I was new to Nashville and I was using a lot of outside songs,” Jana says. Not to say she didn’t write a “crap load,” because she did, but when it came time to pick which songs were going on the record, the ones she was being pitched outshined most of her own. “[Nashville writers] would take the sentiment of what I was saying and make it better, more unique,” she says. Though she only wrote a handful of songs on her debut, she feels just as connected to the ones written by others. “I won’t sing a song if I don’t feel connected to it,” Jana says. “I’ll listen to songs and in a few seconds I’ll know if I’m going to pass on it.”

For her sophomore record, which she is working on now, she stepped up her writing game. “I have a ballad on the album called ‘Shatter’ that I’ve wanted to write for a long time,” she says. She brought in some co-writers to help craft the song and it turned out “exactly how [Jana] wanted it.” After working with so many different writers over the last two years she feels like she can contribute more to a writing session. For the first album she had trouble structuring songs, but after watching people do it and writing more, she feels like she gets it. “It’s sass with class,” she says of the record. “There’s love, heartbreak, fun. It’s not too bitchy.”

The Nashville environment she’s living and writing in has helped bring Jana “back to [her] roots.” When she moved there from L.A. she was quickly reminded of how kind and caring people can be. She currently lives there with her fiancé and fellow country singer Brantley Gilbert, and she considers Nashville her home and a place where she can raise a family.

“I feel like I can breathe here,” she says. Though kids are not in the immediate future for her and Brantley, she says she’s always wanted a big family. “Originally I wanted four kids, but I’m almost 30 so it would be nice to have a boy and a girl,” she says.

“But I’ll keep trying until I have a girl.”

I ask if she knows when the wedding will be yet. “Yes...” she says. “If you just look at our calendars, whatever weekend we both have off, that’s probably when we’re going to get married.”

Their busy schedules make planning a wedding ­— and even just seeing each other — extremely difficult. Brantley is currently out on tour with Tim McGraw, and Jana is with Blake Shelton until mid-September. They make sure they don’t spend more than two weeks apart at any given time and are just now scheduling time to spend together. “We meant to do it a while ago, but he’s working on his album and needs to go to the studio, and I’m writing for my album... It’s hard,” she says. Though many couples fear crossing their personal and professional lives, Jana has no trouble working with Brantley. “He’s such a good songwriter, so I get to learn a lot from him,” she says, smiling, “I’m sweeter 48

JANA KRAMER * and he’s rougher, so we get to blend those things when writing together.”

Writing has become easier for Jana over the years. The vulnerability of songwriting, which scared her off in the first place, is welcoming to her now. “It’s like therapy,” she says.

“Whenever I sing certain songs I get specific images in my head.

I get to keep going through it until I can let it go.” Initially she was nervous to bear all in her songs, but then she realized that country music was with her through all the good and bad times in her life, and she wants her fans to feel like she did. “I don’t care if I’m pitch perfect in a song,” says. “As long as I’m out there showing emotion I could care less.”

Though her confidence shows on stage now, Jana’s first label showcase three years ago was a disaster. “I was so nervous and just stood at the mic stand the whole time,” she says. “I knew it was terrible.” Evidently, this showcase is not what got Jana signed but she decided she just needed to go up and “own it” on stage from then on. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. It took her a year and a half, but she eventually found her groove in performing. Her first tour was last summer with Brad Paisley, where she played the side stage with Love & Theft and Kristin Kelly, and she hadn’t quite figured it out yet. “It wasn’t until this past tour with Darius Rucker where I was like ‘Shoot, I can do this,’” she says. At the end of the tour, she says Rucker told her, “I watched you in the beginning and you were good, but by the end I watched you become a star.”

Jana has a flight to catch, so we wind down our conversation.

Her bandleader has called a few times now, letting Jana and her manager know that everything is fine and he’s leaving the hospital in a few hours. “I knew everything would be ok,” she says while picking up her luggage. Yeah, Jana’s got nothing to worry about. NKD

“WHENEVER I SING CERTAIN SONGS I GET SPECIFIC IMAGES IN MY HEAD. I GET TO KEEP GOING THROUGH IT UNTIL I CAN LET IT GO.” JANA KRAMER

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A DREAM 2 BELIEVE Brock Falfas wants to change children’s lives, one T-shirt as a time. Brock, who doubles as merch manager for rock band The Cab, founded A Dream 2 Believe, a non-profit clothing company, with co-owner Nick Salvatore in June 2012. The pair and their team operate on a “Cloth for Cloth” basis — for each T-shirt purchased, a shirt is donated to a child in need. AD2B also works with the Boys & Girls Club of America and hopes to team up with Rocketown, a non-profit in Nashville that provides afterschool programs for teenagers. Now, Brock and his team are working to build their own center that will bring music to young people.

A DREAM TO BELIEVE *

What is A Dream 2 Believe?

BROCK FALFAS: We are a non-profit clothing company. Every time you buy a T-shirt, we donate one to a homeless American child.

What made you decide to focus on helping children?

BF: I feel like you can’t start with the older generation, and that’s sad but true. We can affect these children, we can change them. It’s a very broad picture that I’m bringing together slowly, and I feel like if you really did start building Rocketowns all throughout the nation, it would really change the way that music is grown. Imagine if you land someone like [Justin] Bieber, or someone who never would have played music walks into one of these centers. You’re going to change something.

What inspired you to start A Dream 2 Believe?

BF: I went to [Rocketown] and I’m hearing stories from this kid who has nine holes in his shirt. Can’t even afford food but wants to go see his favorite band on a Friday, and to me it’s like, hold on a second, I’ve been privileged. I’ve never seen this, this is never something that’s been in my life, what can I do to change this now? I’ve got a great backing of a family and they were totally supportive when they heard about it. I don’t want kids walking around with nine holes in their shirt while there’s other kids that have everything and anything they want. If their dream is to play a guitar or to have a chance at that, then I want to put that out there, I want to make that readily available.

How did your experience at Rocketown affect you?

BF: I feel like my life was changed. I don’t take things for granted anymore. I try to do everything I can to go above and beyond. You want to meet The Cab? Ok, let’s go hang with them for five minutes. They’re not anything different from anyone else, and I’m not anything different.

I don’t want our names to be a huge part of it, that’s not the point and I can’t stress that enough. This about others. This about those children. Rocketown’s the one that showed me the story. We’re a young company, I’m finding this all out as I go and for everyone to be on board and want to see a change, this only the start.

What is your vision for a music-focused center for kids?

BF: I can only imagine something like Alex DeLeon [singer, The Cab] coming into a Boys & Girls Club to give an hour-long singing lesson. I want centers that can be a home for kids, and if this makes any overhead at all that can be used for a salary, no, let’s put it into food for these kids. I want kids to come in that have dreams. They don’t have anything, but I want to give them hope. I want to see the change as it occurs.

What are the next steps in working toward your goal?

BF: We want to move forward to our 501(c)(3) [tax exemption], which is the most important thing to us right now. It will put us on the map, and we can then take donations. We can them give write-offs, we can make everything tax deductible. Right now I pay all the taxes, I’ve put more money into this just to keep it going.

What do you hope to gain from this project?

BF: I don’t want anything out of this. I’ve said the entire time that I want to be the least paid person out of anyone that we ever bring out. I want to be able to come out to Van’s Warped Tour every summer and be able to say I did it for free. That feeling of helping these children is something that would change my life.

What do you hope for A Dream 2 Believe to become in the future?

BF: I’m one that won’t sit around and just watch things. I’m always the one that’s like, get out there and do it, or somebody else is going to do it. I want this to be bigger than To Write Love [on Her Arms], this to be bigger than the Boys & Girls Club, and I’m not gonna stop until I get there. We’re going to, and nothing is going to stop us. It’s sounds corny, but teamwork makes the dream work. NKD

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ANARBOR Words by Christine O’Dea » Photos by Catherine Powell

Last year, Anarbor were on top of the world. The Phoenix-bred alternative rock band had a contract with a major record label, was touring the world and playing music festivals like the 2011 Zumiez Couch Tour and Vans Warped Tour. This year however, Warped Tour is a little different.

Lead vocalist and bassist Slade Echeverria is riding solo — the rest of the band suddenly quit in early June of this year.

Although he has a new back-up band playing with him and there doesn’t seem to be any animosity between the guys now, Slade admits that continuing without them has affected him many ways.

The singer seems reserved as he recounts Anarbor’s 2003 formation before his Warped Tour set in Holmdel, N.J. “I was in school one day and some buddies were like, ‘Wanna start a band?’” Slade says. Just five years later the band signed a deal with Hopeless Records, with original band members Greg Garrity on drums, and Adam Juwig and Mike Kitlas playing guitar.

The band had a somewhat slow start while the guys established their line up and practiced their instruments, but after a few successful years gained a unique and successful momentum.

Slade remembers telling his mom that “voice lessons

are for girls” when she first suggested them after hearing him singing around the house. Now he says, “I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for my mom.” Along with influences from his mom, Slade’s sister used to listen to the Backstreet Boys all the time, and he credits her for the rock and pop vibes he is proud to carry.

With vocal lessons — and maybe some lessons from the Backstreet Boys — Slade and his band mates found solid ground and grew from there. After endless practice and hard work, the band began playing shows on weekends. They took trips to different cities in California, including San Francisco and San Diego, as well as in the Phoenix area where they’re from.

“People make different life choices,” he says. “They wanted to move on. I’ve been stressed out a little bit, but I got a good team behind me. [Quitting] crossed my mind but I love what I do so it was an easy decision.”

On this particular date of Warped Tour, Slade says he is working on adjusting his comfort zone and getting used to the fact that his band mates have all moved on to different things. After 10 years of playing music, writing songs, touring and growing with the same crew, it’s no walk in the park.

“Comfortable is having the rest of the band with me,” he says.

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ANARBOR “It sucks that they’re not here with me. I wish they were.”

The changes in the band could have created some negative energy, but for Slade, the new dynamic fueled his drive to continue and gave him a reason to grow. “You never know,” he says. “Life is crazy and you have to take the benefits out of it.”

Slade has seen the benefits of the crazy life he lives. With the release of their newest record, Burnout, on June 4 of this year, a full summer of Warped Tour and only good things to look forward to, Slade has come a long way from refusing vocal lessons as a kid. Anarbor’s music has come a long way too.

At 13 or 14 years old, the guys of Anarbor were already making music and building a fan base. “The songs we were writing were just about high school bullshit and girlfriends,” Slade says with a laugh. Now, at 23, he can see the changes he’s been through and how they’ve has affected his music and lyrics. “It definitely hits you being on the road for so long,” he says. “Having girlfriends, and having people die in your life ... Well, you just kind of grow up a little bit.”

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“I WOULDN’T BE WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW IF IT WASN’T FOR MY MOM.” SLADE ECHEVERRIA

Over the years, the writing process has become more mature. The band’s growth in their earlier years was reflected in their music, with lyrics like “I’m sweating bullets like a boy that has just been caught” from a 2008 hit, “The Brightest Green.” Looking back, Slade describes those years as a time when the band didn’t completely know what they doing, and despite what they may have thought as teenagers, they weren’t invincible.

With Burnout, Anarbor hope to send a message that’s more about experiencing life than growing up. A track off of Burnout, called “Damage I’ve Done” is about moving on from high school and growing apart from childhood friends.

Slade hopes people can relate to these songs. After all, many of the new songs are co-written, which was both a challenge and pleasure for Slade. Writing is a personal act for most, but in his years as a songwriter, Slade has learned that it can’t hurt to have two people writing one song. “As long as there aren’t too many cooks in the kitchen, it’s good,” he says.

When it comes to songwriting, Slade says he enjoys

writing with people who are personable and easy to talk to — the type of songwriter that he hopes he comes across as. An “outgoing dude” who’s not “really awkward” makes for “cooler shit,” according to Slade.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Slade says. “But you gain more experience with the process of writing more music, and playing more music and live shows and interacting with fans.” In everything including music, Slade looks to gain experience, both from those around him and from himself.

Slade explains that the people he surrounds himself with are those who have molded him into who he is today, and that if it were a different group of people, Anarbor might not exist.

Slade maintains a positive attitude and works hard to make sure that, for the sake of their fans around the world, Anarbor will continue to grow, and maybe even inspire some junior high kids to start their own band someday.

Slade has all the confidence and support from fans he needs. “I take everything as it comes,” he says. “I don’t really have plans for the future, I just go with the flow. That’s my philosophy. Everybody has their own way.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

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3OH!3

Words by Ariella Mastroianni » Photos by Catherine Powell

THE UNDERGROUND HIP-HOP SCENE IN BOULDER,

Colo. is no joke, which is exactly why Nathaniel ‘Nat’ Motte and Sean Foreman, the rowdy duo behind the electro-pop band 3Oh!3, stopped taking it seriously.

“We were very entrenched in the underground hip hop scene at Colorado,” Nat recalls of his time at the University of Colorado Boulder, where the guys met.

“There was a six month period where I got real hip hop.”

He’s only somewhat joking, as you would expect from the pale, slender, 6-foot-7 dude who co-writes lyrics like, “I’m going to throw a house party in my house” and “please don’t text cause my phone is dead anyways.” But for the most part, he’s being completely serious.

Nat, who wrote music and produced beats throughout college, was part of an underground hip-hop radio show at the university called Basementalism.

“It was almost like an underground hip-hop frat,” Nat explains. “It became very closed-minded and after a while people give you shit for liking different kinds of music.”

The same goes for hip-hop shows at Boulder —

artists who wanted to break from the traditional beats and rap about non-serious themes (like partying) usually “got no love.”

“People would be like, ‘Look at this jokester’,” Sean says. “You can never like any pop music. People would be like, ‘fucking sellouts’ and no one even knew what that meant. They wouldn’t even give a shit about the art. But why does it have to be mutually exclusive? Why can’t it be fun? Some people just want to have a good time.”

Joke’s on them: 3Oh!3’s tongue-in-cheek rhymes over layered, uptempo beats is exactly the kind of music that landed them a record deal with Photo Finish Records after they released their debut, self-titled album in 2007. It’s also the kind of music that gets them work with industry heavyweights like producers Benny Blanco (Maroon 5, Taio Cruz, Whiz Khalifa) and Matt Squire (Demi Lovato, One Direction). The result: massive radio hits like “STARSTRUKK” feat.

Katy Perry and “My First Kiss” feat. Ke$ha.

The guys of 3Oh!3 owe it all to wanting to have a good time. In fact, their mutual love and discontent with the underground hip-hop scene at Boulder emerged from that need to have fun, and started their “bromance”.

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The guys had seen each other at shows around campus, but didn’t say much to each other until Nat showed up to class one day wearing a T-shirt from the California-based hip-hop label Anticon­­­­— one of Sean’s favorites at the time. So Sean approached Nat, and the interaction went something like this: “Oh shit, you know that band? Hey man, I’ve seen you everywhere, but I don’t know you.” And that’s pretty much it — they went back to Nat’s house, threw on a record and started freestyling.

Not long after, the guys started producing and writing their own music.

“I mean, you don’t find someone every day who likes all the same shit as you,” Sean says. And the guys like a lot of shit, musically speaking. Sean and Nat grew up in musical households. “My mom sings my dad plays guitar,” Sean says. “My dad is a restaurant consultant and my mom’s a nurse, but if you asked our family what we all do, it’s play music. So I always knew I would do that.” There are no musicians in Nat’s immediate family, but his grandfather played piano. “My grandfather was a 12-inch pianist,” he says.

Speaking of pianist — they also owe their humor to their parents. “I think both of us were raised to take things with a sense of humor and to always look at things in the light,” Sean says. But again — that doesn’t mean they don’t take themselves seriously.

*

3OH!3 * “I feel like that’s a line that we walk,” Nat says of their seriously, non-serious music. “I think an important distinction for us is that those things are by no means mutually exclusive. I think you can have some fun with what you’re doing and still be very, very serious about the art and very serious about what you’re creating.”

If there’s one thing still underground hip-hop about the members of 3Oh!3, it’s their DIY mentality. Especially on their newest release, Omens (2013), which the guys wrote, produced, mixed and engineered entirely on their own.

“We work really hard,” Sean says. “But I think we do less talking and more walking with what we do.” They say something to this effect on the track “Live for the Weekend” off Omens: “Yeah the 3Oh!3 is here with something offensive to say to your kids / fuck your little chatroom of how we should live / get out of your parents house and do your own shit.”

That song captures 3Oh!3’s ethos pretty perfectly — live for the weekend and do your own thing. NKD

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WE CAME AS ROMANS

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Words by Clarisse Hansard » Photos by Catherine Powell

THE GUYS OF METALCORE BAND WE CAME AS ROMANS PLANTED A SEED FOUR YEARS AGO. Their first album, To Plant A Seed (2009), which was written when the guys were teenagers, reflects their eagerness as a young band. Now, after a series of ups and downs, the guys have come full circle with their latest release, Tracing Back Roots (2013).

Things changed for the band after their first album.

Guitarist Joshua Moore explains that their sophomore release, Understanding What We’ve Grown to Be (2011), is about the low points everyone has at some point in their lives.

While working on Understanding, the six members of We Came As Romans were all growing up and it wasn’t easy for anyone, especially because of the instability that comes from constantly being on tour. “Every day on the road is different,” Joshua says. “You have six wavelengths going at the same time of our lives and they’re not always going to be equal.” He and bassist Andy Glass explain what they were going through during the period before Understanding as a darkness they had never been able to make sense of. They realized they had to use what they were feeling in their work, so they began the formal creation of the album.

Coping with the darkness surrounding them was different for every member of We Came As Romans. Andy, Joshua points out, is an artist. He can sit down for five or six hours at a time and draw — that’s what makes things better for him. Joshua looks to writing lyrics to find peace, which is what the material for Understanding came out of. Writing for the record was done predominantly in a leather-bound notebook their label, Equal Vision Records, gave Joshua for Christmas. When the recording process neared, Joshua handed the notebook to his band mates and they all decided that this record and these lyrics were going to serve as all of their voices. Joshua says no one in the band was upset with anything that had been written — they knew his words expressed what they were all feeling.

From the start it was clear that the band’s sophomore record was going to be darker than anything they had released before. Compared with Tracing Back Roots, Understanding is filled with dissonance — it’s the trials of growing up put to music.

Understanding was an album the members of We Came As Romans needed to make in order to settle everything they had been dealing with. The record peaked at No. 7 on indie charts and made it into the Billboard Top 200.

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IT SOON BECAME OBVIOUS THAT UNDERSTANDING

was not solely a cathartic album for its creators, it was an album their fans needed and could connect to in huge ways.

The darkness was the source of the music, but the unexpected result was that it brought light to the guys and to their fans as well.

It’s been two years since the release of Understanding and the band has just released Tracing Back Roots, which is their third full-length album. It’s Warped Tour, and as soon as the guys start talking about the new record, their tone shifts.

They’re in sweltering heat, and have already been on the road for ages playing shows every day. Anyone would expect them to be worn out from all the insanity, but instead they’re stoked when they talk about the differences between Tracing Back Roots and Understanding. The band makes the personal significance of Tracing Back Roots clear — he says the guys feel young again. “It’s like a flame [was] lit back up,” Joshua says.

The idea was that Tracing Back Roots needed to be representative of everything that had changed since the release of their last album. It’s been, as they put it, a very long process.

They tried new things with their music. They reworked vocals, brought in guest musicians, worked with a different producer and even switched up their recording location in an attempt to create music that will give their listeners an entirely new experience. The guys included songs that have clean vocals, like “Hope,” which they released early. “It’s like this new step to attempt to separate ourselves from the norm of what goes on in this metalcore genre,” Joshua says.

Although they’ve introduced more clean vocals, they’ve also taken steps to make their music more intricate by adding more chord changes and more vocal melody. They’ve also put more thought and effort into their writing than ever before.

The guys admit that it’s a different sound and it’s not something

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that everybody is going to love right off the bat, but it’s a lot more pleasing to the ear to someone who has never heard their music before. “It’s the melody that is going to catch someone’s ears at first,” Joshua says, “[but] hopefully they’ll then look up the lyrics and understand what’s going on in the song … For a band like us that has this message behind the lyrics, that’s the whole purpose.”

What lies at the core of what fans have always loved about We Came As Romans hasn’t changed. The guys know that their inspiring lyrics have played arguably one of the largest roles in the strength of their fan base. They know their fans cling the meaning of their music, and they hope the songs of Tracing Back Roots are no different. Despite the change in sound, they say it’s not about gaining new fans or following any trends.

What really catalyzed the changes in Tracing Back Roots is that the guys are all finally in a good place, a better place than they were during Understanding. “[We decided] we’re gonna write the music we want to write and see how it goes,” Joshua says.

Tracing Back Roots is a new chapter. “[Our music] is always going to be continuation of our lives,” Joshua says. “There are always going to be these interlocking themes. Some bands release concept albums … I’d like to think that, at the end of our band, all our CDs will tell this story of what we went through.” “[Tracing Back Roots] is about moving forward but remembering where you came from,” Andy adds. “Even the album cover, the person is reaching [toward] the sky but also has a root in his hand.”

They’ve reached a new level with Tracing Back Roots that is representative of their growth since the last record. They’re far from where they were in the past. “You know, “Joshua says, “when you’re a happier person you tend to write happier music.” NKD

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