Greater Heights

Kings of The Summer - The Greater Heights placement 2012 - Gas Can

The Greater Heights May 19, 2012

Filed under: Music — BFF Magazine @ 1:53 am

Meet The Greater Heights!
The Greater Heights are a pop/rock band from San Diego, CA, but not everything started in San Diego. Back in 2009, Chase Johnson (Singer) picked up everything and left his hometown of Rockton, Illinois and moved to San Diego to join The Greater Heights with Robert Main (Bass). Two years later, through some mutual friends, Chase and Robert connected with Chris Crain (Drums) and Chris joined the Greater Heights. Soon after, Chase got his best friend from Illinois, Maxwell Hobbs (Guitar), to move to San Diego as well to be in the band. With similar tastes in music but also very opposite opinions in music, the Greater Heights achieve a unique sound with mainstream pop with a dash of rock; they bring a new element to the table. If you’re a fan of The Maine, Mayday Parade, The Fray, Panic at the Disco, Coldplay, and The Cab then we guarantee you will love The Greater Heights! We recently caught up with Robert Main, the bass guitarist, for The Greater Heights to learn more about them as artists and individuals. Check out our question and answer session with them:
Q: What/where is your hometown? Do the people back at home support you?
A: As of now our hometown is San Diego, Ca, but we’re all from different areas. Chase Johnson (Singer) and Maxwell Hobbs (Guitar) are both from Rockton, Illinois. I’m (Robert Main (Bass)) from Orange County,CA and Chris Crain (Drums) is from Riverside, CA. Through all of our travels, we all ended up in San Diego and that’s what we call home now. All of our families support the band, which is a godsend to all of us. Without the backing behind us from our family and friends, we wouldn’t be doing the things we love to do.

Q: How did you come up with your band name?
A: We used to be called another name, and had a totally different sound; we decided to give us a new name. We must have come up with over 200 names and we condensed it down to the best words and came up with The Greater Heights. It’s kinda cheesy but it’s also where we want to go with our music.

Q: Who are your major music influences?
A: We all have different influences when it comes to our music. Some of us listen to Coldplay, The Fray, The Script and Justin Bieber, but some us listen to Four Year Strong, Cartel, The Cab and Weezer. I think because of the different genres interfering with our writing it helps us get something really special.

Q: How long have you all known each other?
A: Well because Chase and Maxwell came from the same area, they’ve know each other for years. But as a whole, we’ve been The Greater Heights you know for about a year.

Q: How did you meet?
A: I was in the band before “The Greater Heights” and we needed a new singer so through mutual friends and via MySpace, we found Chase and flew him out here to tryout. We all liked Chase so he moved out from Illinois to be in the band. Through a few member changes throughout the years, we hooked up with Chris and Chase got Maxwell to move out to San Diego as well.

Q: What genre would you consider your work to be?
A: We like to consider ourselves Pop/Rock. It’s so hard to name what kind of genre you are because there’s so many out there, so we just like to keep it simple with Pop/Rock.

Q: What is your biggest inspiration in life?
A: Our biggest inspiration is all the awesome music we listen to. If we didn’t listen to our favorite artists, I don’t think we would be doing we love to do right now. All the artists that have paved the way for us truly inspire us every day.
Q: Do you guys have any other hobbies besides, obviously, making music?
A: We all love going to the beach since it’s so close to us. We all live in the same house together so we all get together with our friends and watch movies and play Mario Kart 64 into the late, late hours.

Q: What are your hopes for the near future?
A: Our - BFF MAGAZINE

The Greater Heights

1. How did you get your band name?
After a few months of the whole band coming up with lists and lists, with combination after combination, we all came up with The Greater Heights.
We're all in this band to achieve the most out of our music. That doesn't mean just doing to try to get rich and famous, but keep going to the "greatest heights" we can with what we love and do it together.

2. How did this band get started?
The band started January 2009 by Josh Paul of Confide. He was the merch guy for the band back then and wanted to start his own project called Sky Harbor, so he started reaching out to people. He finally got a hold of Chris and Morgan to play guitar. He also got a drummer and a singer. The singer back then knew Robert from high school and asked him if he wanted to join. After a couple months of writing, Josh Paul was asked to play guitar for Confide, so the rest of the us wanted to keep going. After writing for a few more months we hit the studio with Kris Comeaux of Lorene Drive to record our first EP.

We played a bunch of shows that year, but with major member changes (singer and drummer) the rest of us were left trying to complete this band. We found Justin to play drums through Chris and Morgan and then sent an online casting call for a singer. After over a dozen auditions, we came across Chase's recording and fell in love right away. So we flew him out for a meeting and officially made him a member of the band.

In February of 2010 we went to back to Kris Comeaux to record our new EP with brand new songs. Then in the Fall of 2010 we officially changed our name to The Greater Heights since we were pretty much a brand new band and wanted to start fresh.
January 14, 2011, we released our EP "Streets of the Better Life" and are continuing to do the very best with our music and talents.

3. What bands are you influenced by?
We're influenced by tons of different bands such as: Cartel, Mayday Parade, The Maine, Senses Fail, Thursday, Four Year Strong, Hit the Lights and way more.

4. If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
Probably all the bands we just listed on the influenced question......but we would do a world tour, of course.

5. If you were a furry, what animal would you be? Why that animal?
I would probably be a midget bear. One, I'm tiny; and two, I'm known for my beard so I'm already furry. By the way, is midget bear offensive?

6. Why should people listen to your band?
Honestly, that's probably the hardest question to be asked because no matter what I say, some other band has probably said it in the past and being fresh and new in music is so hard. I'd say, "listen to us because it's fun. It's something to bang your head to but sing along at the same time".

7. If you were chosen to be in Guitar Hero/Rock Band, what song would you want in the game? How hard do you think it would be to five-star on expert?
Of our songs? hmmmm, probably "Getaway" just because it's a fun song to play live and I'm guessing it would be fun to play on xbox. It probably wouldn't be that hard to beat on expert lol

8. If you won a Grammy, who would you thank?
If I won a Grammy and I didn't thank my mom first, she would run from wherever she was and kick my ass.

9. If you could change something about the music industry, what would it be?
Even though everyone does it and it's super easy to do, I would change illegally downloading music. So many people in this industry have lost so much because of it, and it makes it harder for bands starting out to get going.

10. Memorable tour experience?
All I got to say is we were in Fresno and my quote for the night was "I'M NOT OKAY!!!!!"

11. What does AP.net mean to you?
AP.net means a lot. I love checking in every day and seeing everything that is happening with all sorts of different bands and music related things. Its kind of like TMZ but less lame.

12. What is your favorite song to - ABSOLUTEPUNK.net

A behind the scenes look at the upcoming Greater Heights music video for "Make It Through"
- ABSOLUTEPUNK.net

We have been teasing you all week with the a behind the scenes look at The Greater Heights new music video, and we even had a special message from the guys. Well, without further ado, here is the premiere of The Greater Heights' brand new music video for 'Make It Through'. Yay! - Buzznet

The Greater Heights and Buzznet are happy to be premiering the band’s all new music video for the single, "Make It Though” this week! In anticipation for the big reveal, we have an exclusive look behind the scenes of the video shoot to give fans a little taste! Yay!


Be sure to keep up with us all week for the new video and another special video you will not want to miss! You can pick up their new music here on iTunes.
- Buzznet

Greater Heights, The – Streets of the Better Life
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: January 14th, 2011

The last few reviews I’ve done haven’t turned out favorable for the albums I was listening to. It was like when Andy Dufresne had to crawl through 300 yards of shit to get to the end of the tunnel. Actually, that’s probably a bit harsh towards the last few albums I reviewed, but you get my point. Months ago I went through the list of albums for review and immediately liked the sound of The Greater Heights. I put them on the top of my list, but it only just made its way to me. The other albums weren’t total letdowns, but here is my Shawshank Redemption, if you will.

When I first heard the EP Streets of the Better Life, it reminded me when I first heard Mayday Parade, Hit The Lights, All Time Low, and even a bit of Fall Out Boy in the instrumentals. It’s definitely west coast pop punk and that’s alright with me.

It starts out with “Kings of the Summer.” It’s a fusion of FOB and Mayday Parade. It takes me back to a trip to San Diego with my brother. The audio creates a visual photo album of that trip and how much fun we had. “Fall Isn’t As Colorful As You” showcases a nice range of vocals and I love the guitar rifts throughout. It also has a really catchy chorus. “Westcoast and Personal” has a definite FOB sound to it – maybe something off Take This To Your Grave. It has an anthem chorus and the catchiness of a Mayday track. Maybe because of the track name, but “This Stays In Vegas” reminds me of The Cab. It’s got some powerful drums and choruses that make the whole track catchy; I caught myself tapping my foot and nodding my head several times while sitting next to a 65 year old man in Starbucks. I’m not ashamed. The album ends with their slowest song, “Secrets.” It does a great job of showcasing the soft vocals accompanied with just an acoustic guitar. I like that the album concludes with this song.

Overall, I’m really happy that the album finally made its way to me. It really was worth the wait. I hope the full length follows in this vain. If you haven’t already, give this band and this EP a listen.

Recommended if You Like
Mayday Parade, Fall Out Boy, The Cab, All Time Low, Hit The Lights, the left coast - ABSOLUTEPUNK.net

The night I met these guys was more by coincidence than anything else. After all, I was at the venue to see This Century and that was mostly it. The two side bands were great, but The Greater Heights weren’t exactly what I had been expecting. So I was surprised at the opportunity of seeing these guys place as well, and open for the evening’s real touring bands.

Very pleasantly surprised, might I add. As one of the opening bands of the evening, they were filled with personal, exciting energy and filled the room with a buzz. These guys are close knit friends, passionate about their music.

While they can join the stream of other bands, their lyrics are definitely one of a kind. ‘Fall Isn’t As Colorful As You Are’ is a strong song in both lyrics and drums about the change in relationships. With the lines, “I swear you're changing/ So give up the faking,” many people coming out of a tough relationship can definitely connect to these frustrations. A few of their other songs, like ‘Getaway’ can join the table on break-ups.

‘Kings Of The Summer’ is my personal favorite from their EP, Streets Of The Better Life. Can we really ever have enough of those summer songs, after all? While this song does share a ruined relationship, it takes us back to the sunsets on the beach where the time spent together was perfect, and how we’re going to spend our fall and winter reminiscing on what happened and how it could have been so much better.

Although trying to achieve the rock star life, it’s not all glitter and gold. They’ve fallen on a few tough times lately- for one, their bus broke down in Vegas, their drummer dislocated his elbow, and they’ve parted with Morgan, the guitarist. [If you want to help out, check out their site to listen and donate] Still friends, of course, and thank goodness they have a friend Max Hobbs from Illinois who’s coming to join them to continue their mission and journey.

The Greater Heights has committed so much and are a very promising band with plenty of potential. They fit right in with the mesh of bands that are sparking in today’s industry. Everyone should give these boys a chance not only because they have worked hard to get where they are, but they are good enough to keep moving ahead in the game. The Greater Heights, based in my hometown of San Diego, is one band you will not want to miss out on!
- Melodic Sound Waves

The Greater Heights Release Music Video for their new single 'Make It Through" - Melodic Sound Waves