Midnight Hour

Celebrating its 11th anniversary, the OC Music Awards kicks off on January 3rd with seven weeks of free showcases at different venues across the county. 35 local artists will compete for the titles of Best Live Band or Best Live Acoustic and a performance slot at the 2012 OC Music Awards, March 3 at the Grove of Anaheim. And, the voting is open now!

[pullquote quote="We want to put out a positive message...It's a message of overcoming and having hope that things can be--and will be--better...That's something we'd like to continue to push for as a band. " credit="Brad Lodge from Midnight Hour"]“I believe there’s more than this so-called modern love,” sings Brad Lodge, vocalist of Orange County-based, KROQ Locals Only played band, Midnight Hour, in their song “Modern Love.” Those lyrics aren’t just part of a slick, radio-ready ’80s-style pop-rock mantra; Midnight Hour strives to write songs that “mean something” and that “dig a little bit deeper.”

In the case of “Modern Love,” Lodge explained that the song was all about “just getting back to classical values, classical view of love and relationships and kind of the anti-idea that seems to be permeating music and lyrics where love is a feeling or just an emotion or frivolous. It comes and it goes. That song, upbeat and poppy as it sounds, hopefully conveys something a bit bigger and more meaningful.”

“We want to put out a positive message,” Lodge continued. “On the record we deal with some difficult things but it’s never a woe-is-me kind of thing. It’s a message of overcoming and having hope that things can be–and will be–better…That’s something we’d like to continue to push for as a band. There’s a lot of songs out there about negative things or frivalous things that don’t matter.”

Both stylish and acutely articulate with cultured airs that read less Southern California and more Transatlantic jetsetters, Lodge and guitarist Tim Johnson are perfect physical embodiments of what Midnight Hour is as a band: worldly, musical wunderkinds who focus on expansive, “positive” lyrical concepts while trying to stay “young and relevant.”



[pullquote quote="As a struggling band...It was really encouraging and inspiring to have all these friends and people we don't even know support us. "]Joined by bassist Jared Mitchell, guitarist James Mitchell, and drummer Dan Ardis, Midnight Hour say they “care about how things sound” and have worked “really, really hard” on “sounding polished live” and “songwriting,” efforts that have reflected in their success with funding their first album with donation-based entrepreneurial tool, Kickstarter.

“Everyone came through. It meant so much,” said Midnight Hour. “As a struggling band…It was really encouraging and inspiring to have all these friends and people we don’t even know support us.”

“We’d been a band awhile and we’d made an EP very early on,” the band continued. “It’s a journey; we’re still figuring it out. I think bands are always trying to figure it out. They’re always changing, but it’s very encouraging for us to see so much support from not just friends and family but literally all across America. All these people kept coming out of the woodwork wanting to help us. It’s insane.”

Not just across the country. I remark to Lodge and Johnson that Midnight Hour seems like an “international” band. Although curious as to how, they did remark that Midnight Hour feels like they “would do well playing overseas in England and Germany” and ”has a lot of fans from all over the world including England, Germany, Japan, and South America.

[pullquote quote="We want to stay young and relevant and have a lot of energy to our songs because we love playing live. It's just so much fun to just sweat it out on stage and keep it upbeat and keep it moving. "]Although they are huge fans of the American rock songwriting prowess of [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Tom Petty[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Bruce Springsteen[/lastfm], Lodge and Johnson also say [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]The Killers[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]U2[/lastfm]–very internationally-successful bands–are also major influences.

“We’ve been trying more and more to find our voice and I think right now we’re as close as we can get to all our influences,” explained Lodge. ”Bands like Killers or U2, I think they do have a sound that seems to transcend just a niche in California. I think U2 has a big sound and I think that’s something we appreciate it about it. It’s wide; it’s just not a little sound.”

Johnson agreed, saying: “We want to stay young and relevant and have a lot of energy to our songs because we love playing live. It’s just so much fun to just sweat it out on stage and keep it upbeat and keep it moving, but there’s also moments that are a little more upbeat or cinematic.”

The vivid, visual ebb-and-flow emotional narrative of cinema appeals to both Lodge and Johnson as an inspiration and when asked how they would label Midnight Hour as a genre, Johnson dubbed them “Cinema Rock.” - KROQ

Midnight Hour first came together in 2006, one year before the release of their first ep “Ghost in the Mirror.” Although he was happy with the art they created together, front man Brad Lodge was never comfortable with his bands initial mix of members. As fate would have it, Lodge met Tim Johnson, Dan Ardis, Jared Mitchell and James Mitchell.

With the lineup solidified the Band began collaborating on material; within weeks, the single, “Running Away,” was created and helped introduce the band to the world via several T.V. shows. This exposure created the global base that has spawned over a million YouTube hits via fan generated videos. Since then the band has self-produced their first LP (self titled) and got the funding they needed to create the record from their loyal fan base.

The first single, “Modern Love,” received a huge push thanks to the keen ears of Kat Corbett and KROQ’s Locals Only. The band’s fans have nearly crippled KROQ.com with their repeat requests for more airtime. If their fan base continues to grow at the current pace, the band will likely find itself playing in bigger and bigger venues around the country. - KROQ