Lower 40

The gang from the Rise and Shine Show on Freedom 43 have released a new theme song for the show. They paired up with the Lower 40 Band and recorded the song “Don’t Hit The Snooze.” - Freedom 43

KWTV News 9. Oklahoma City. Amanda Taylor travels to Nashville to introduce you to "The Lower 40', an Oklahoma band about to hit it big. - News 9

The Lower 40 is one of Oklahoma’s fastest rising bands and they’ve even done a new rise and shine jingle that many people have loved so far.
Joining the Rise & Shine show this morning are lead singer Lyle Earhart, along with Zach Felts, Sherman Haynes, Michael Lloyd and Nick Work.
You can see them at the Coffee Creek 4th Annual Watermelon Wine Festival Saturday, July 14th. It will be at the Coffee Creek Music Complex, 5007 Highway 81 in Marlow, OK. Gates open at 3:00 pm and the band performs that night. - Freedom 43

The Lower 40 is one of Oklahoma’s fastest rising bands and they’ve even done a new rise and shine jingle that many people have loved so far.
Joining the Rise & Shine show this morning are lead singer Lyle Earhart, along with Zach Felts, Sherman Haynes, Michael Lloyd and Nick Work.
You can see them at the Coffee Creek 4th Annual Watermelon Wine Festival Saturday, July 14th. It will be at the Coffee Creek Music Complex, 5007 Highway 81 in Marlow, OK. Gates open at 3:00 pm and the band performs that night. - Freedom 43

Lower 40 live on OklaVision.tv - Oklavision

Stoney LaRue and opening act The Lower 40 played a free show Wednesday on Oklahoma Memorial Union's East Lawn as part of the Union Programming Board's concert series.

I’ve always enjoyed going to concerts on the East Lawn. They usually end up feeling more like a block party than just a concert. UPB, as well as the Interfraternity Council, did a great job bringing acclaimed country artists to campus.

A new addition to the concert series, which I really want to see stay for the next concert, was the free drink cooler. It’s almost always so hot during those concerts, and it was nice to have somewhere to grab some water without having to walk all the way to Campus Corner.

I should start off by saying that before Wednesday night, I really hadn’t heard many songs from either of these acts, so I didn’t know what to expect.

The show kicked off with a band from Oklahoma, The Lower 40. It was an interesting mix of red dirt, Southern rock and slower ballad country. The styles were blended pretty seamlessly, and it had jams the audience could sing along to and some really cool guitar solos. The band's rendition of "Johnny B. Goode" was awesome, and its countrified version of "Walk This Way" sounded great. It had a great show, which isn’t surprising since the band was awarded the “Who New to Watch 2012” from CMT. It left the stage around 9 p.m., and the wait began.

Stoney LaRue and his band took the stage after about a 45-minute intermission. Most of the people around me were pretty sick of the wait at this point, but the show was fun, so all’s well that ends well.

I felt like I didn’t know enough of his material to really get down with the rest of the crowd. But I love the two-stepping at country shows. It makes the whole experience better seeing the mass of people — mostly guys in boots twirling gals in dukes — surrounding the stage.

Who wouldn’t be dancing, though; the music was really great. LaRue's band had a tight sound and never really slowed down. I didn’t much care for the guitarist’s tone, but I think that’s merely personal preference.

I really enjoyed a handful of tunes during the show. First, there was a song called “Te Amo Mas Que La Vida" which, contrary to the title, is almost completely in English. I really enjoyed how the song had a standard country style mixed with occasional Mexican guitar style turnarounds. There also was an Allman Brothers cover, and who doesn’t like the Allman Brothers.

It was a fun show, no doubt. I may be in the minority here, but I really liked The Lower 40’s show better than Stoney LaRue’s. It had a really cool sound, and I can’t get its funk'try jam out of my head. - The Oklahoma Daily

The Lower 40 is a new local country based band out of Oklahoma City and is rapidly climbing their way into local fame and show no signs of stopping any time soon.

The Lower 40 consists of Kyle Earheart on lead vocals. Zach Felts on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards and background vocals. Sherman Haynes on Drums and background vocals. Michael Lloyd on bass and background vocals, and Nick Work on lead electric guitar.

Earheart, Haynes, and Work are all graduates of Oklahoma’s Academy of Contemporary Music at The University of Central Oklahoma. Felts is still currently working on his degree from there as well. http://acm.uco.edu/

Earheart put the band together in March of 2011 and only a short eight months later the lower 40 was signing to their first record deal with Land Run records. http://www.landrunrecords.com/

The Lower 40 plan on having their first album come out sometime close to this summer, featuring two of their original hit singles “Southern Boys” and “Summer Song.” “Our main goal is the album right now” said Earheart when talking about the future plans of The Lower 40. http://www.facebook.com/thelower40

The future plans of the Lower 40 include working on their new debut album, writing new material, and auditioning at local venues in the area to gain some opening slots for bigger local and nation acts and earn an opening spot on tour.
One of the things that sets The Lower 40 apart from other surrounding local bands is their the blending of all different styles of music and giving it an oklahoma country twist. The writing process of the Lower 40 takes place in many different ways, and seems to be very evenly worked on through out the whole band.

The writing style of The Lower 40 takes many different routes, “There’s a few that I’ve just finished and brought in.” said Felts while talking about the writing styles of the band. Intern Vinny Howard of Land Run Records also has been involved by adding a few songs to the bands set list as well.

The band also has sessions where everyone will come together as a band and work on new songs as Felts describes, “We’ll all come together and brainstorm once there is a general idea, and kinda get a storyboard going and paint a picture of what we want to convey.”

The Lower 40 has been playing almost every weekend at local venues in the Oklahoma City Area like Whiskey Chicks, and have been focusing a lot of attention to working on their soon to be released debut album.

All of the hard work by the Lower 40 is not going unrecognized by the big dogs in the music industry and in the media. The Lower 40 has been named one of the bands in the CMA’s who’s new to watch for 2012.

The Lower 40 also has launched their own website with upcoming shows and dates, biographies on all of the members, photos and much more for their fans to keep in touch with. http://lower40music.com/ - University of Central Oklahoma