Old Lights
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Old Lights

St. Louis, Missouri, United States | INDIE

St. Louis, Missouri, United States | INDIE
Band Pop Rock

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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"PASTE MAGAZINE: 10 Missouri Bands You Should Know"

When you think of Missouri, Mark Twain, Harry S. Truman and the Big 12/SEC drama might come to mind before “great bands,” but there is a rising music scene spreading throughout the state. St. Louis might be leading the way for the Show Me State with acts like Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, but the whole state is providing its fair share: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin hails from Springfield, and White Rabbits formed in Columbia.

Check out these 10 up-and-coming bands from Missouri that should be on your radar below:

4. Old Lights
Hometown: St. Louis
Current Release: Like Strangers
Members: David Beeman, Beth Bombara, Kit Hamon, John Joern

The pedals and filters on electric guitars mix well with David Beeman’s calm vocals and the harmonies between Beeman and Beth Bombara. “Wilder Honey” is a good example of Old Lights’ ability to write melodies that work perfectly with their lyrics. Their mostly instrumental “Loud Song” is just that, a song that isn’t afraid to turn up the volume.
- Paste Magazine


"CMJ Spotlight: Old Lights"

From solo project to group effort, St. Louis’ Old Lights has gone through quite the transformation to create the diversified and full sound of its newest LP Like Strangers. After the practical solo-release of Old Lights’ first album, Every Night Begins The Same, band creator David Beeman decided to enlist some of St. Louis’ finest musicians—Beth Bombara (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Kit Hamon (bass, keyboards, vocals) and John Joern (drums)—to create the current line-up. Now each member is working to bring Beeman’s vision to life.

There is a definite southern-rock quality to Old Lights, in their melodic yet gruff guitar lines and the slight twang in Beeman’s voice. At the same time, the injection of synths here and there modernize their sound and removes them from becoming just another southern-rock band.

While writing songs for this record, Beeman was living with his girlfriend, and things were a bit rocky, which, while not being good for the relationship, was excellent for songwriting. Often the most tragic events somehow produce the best material (and album titles), so Beeman used the strange situation to begin work on the six songs comprising Like Strangers, by working on material at home and playing it back in the monitors, all while his girlfriend was still in the house. Don’t feel bad though, she’s a musician, too, and she was doing the same thing.

Beeman, as the principle songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist, tells his stories of love found and lost in a way that rarely feels depressing. Listened to in the given track order, the songs paint a vivid picture of a fizzling romance, from pointing fingers on “It Was You” to providing a dual perspective in “Wilder Honey” and the eventual end on “Death Came,” though the couple themselves managed to pull through and remain together today.

Beeman lays it all on the table with nothing to hide, allowing an intensely intimate look into his personal life. But, even though the concept of the album is not a light matter, the musical arrangement never makes things feel awkward—their pop influenced keys and drums blur and cushion the sad core to the songs. Old Lights takes a touchy subject that can easily become a pity party and makes it sound like the least self-indulgent way to self-analyze without asking for condolence from its listeners, but instead providing them with heartbreak they can dance to.
-CMJ.com - CMJ


"2012 Best Indie Rock Band nominee"

“With a wiry voice that recalls Eric D. Johnson of the Fruit Bats, a thirst for melody that suggests Elvis Costello at his poppiest and a band that can rock, skip and stroll through the post-Fleetwood Mac landscape, Beeman may be taking his time with Old Lights, but whatever comes next will be essential listening.” —Roy Kasten, 88.1 KDHX, Riverfront Times

- The Riverfront Times


"Audio Muffin's Top Albums of 2011"

Baker’s complete top 10 for 2011:

Brown Bird Salt For Salt
Old Lights Like Strangers
The Head and the Heart The Head and the Heart
Jump Starts Ready, Set, Go…
Middle Brother Middle Brother
Givers In Light
Scarlet Tanager American Songbird
My Morning Jacket Circuital
Alabama Shakes Alabama Shakes
Rockwell Knuckles YOU’RE FUCKING OUT, I’M FUCKING IN
- Audio Muffin


"Halfway House Video Sessions"

David Beeman and his Old Lights crew had their album release show this past weekend in the their home base of Saint Louis, MO.

Thanks to digital technology and the internet world – we can all enjoy a copy ourselves via their bandcamp page.

Old Lights – Like Strangers.

For a taste – check out their Halfway House Session below: - Halfway House


""I'm Still Figuring Out What it Means..." Review & Interview"

Old Lights' new 10", Like Strangers, is a brutal love story told over six tracks that move with hypnotizing grace. Its the sort of record that you just keep listening to. Its guitars, keys and vocals tee off on one sweet spot after another, peeling off seamlessly or drowning in reverb. David Beeman, never particularly shy as a lyricist or otherwise, has plenty of arrestingly direct lines on this one ("We are not evil/We are just people"). But it's not a one-man show any more: Like Strangers is the product of a band, with Beth Bombara, Kit Hamon and John Joern all intrinsically involved in the process at more-or-less every step along the way.
-Kiernan Maletsky, RFT music editor - The Riverfront Times


"Loufest 2011 Lineup"

"Old Lights’ high energy live show has earned them spots onstage with national acts such as Cold War Kids, Blind Pilot, and Delta Spirit. Hot off the heels of their newest record, this band is going places."

- Loufest


Discography

Like Strangers, July 2011- Self Released
Every Night Begins the Same, Oct. 2009- St. Ives Records

Photos

Bio

Romanticizing pain is a sucker’s game. Heartbreaks are a part of life, and writing sad songs isn’t going to change that immutable fact. But if there is a relationship between personal trauma and great art, David Beeman has found a way to invert the traditional formula. As the leader of St. Louis, Missouri’s Old Lights, Beeman has catalogued his faults, fixations, fumbles and fuck-ups with bright, surging pop music that refuses to lie down. The lyrics my make you flinch, but the music keeps you rapt and swaying.

It’s an uneasy truce, to say the least.

With the new 10-inch release Like Strangers, Old Lights have expanded its palette to address Beeman’s intertwined tales of brutal heartbreak, reluctant resolution and the damnable perseverance of something so trite and vital as love. The melodic opulence of Wings, the dark-cornered and sweetly sung pop of Fleetwood Mac, and Brill Building piano pomp get jostled by joyful synthesizer bursts, jagged guitar freak-outs and choir-sweet harmonies. Beeman’s fluency on guitar and piano frame his high tenor voice, which is able to deliver an emotional payoff without sacrificing the many sweet spots in his songs.

These new layers of sonic set-dressing come compliments of an expanded Old Lights line-up. Where the first LP Every Night Begins the Same (2009, St. Ives Records) was largely a self-recorded affair, Beeman enlisted a veritable wrecking crew of St. Louis talent. As romantic and musical partners, Beth Bombara (keyboards, guitar, vocals) and Kit Hamon (bass, keyboards, vocals) add buoyant, pop-friendly precision as well as stellar vocal harmonies to these songs. Drummer John Joern is the kind of beatkeeper who can direct the musical traffic with minimal flair and maximum taste, and his backing vocals give some honeyed grit to mix. You can hear a band at work, able to interpret and make incarnate Beeman’s visions. If Every Night was a romantic sepia-toned photo, Like Strangers opts for the vibrant and imperfect hues of Kodachrome.

If the line between real life and fine art begins to blur at moments on Like Strangers, that’s Beeman’s way of writing lyrics while swathing them in glorious production and pure-pop arrangements. It may be an uneasy truce, but at least it’s one where no one loses.

--Christian Schaeffer