Saves the Day saves the day

Categorized | culture

Saves the Day saves the day

Posted on 12 April 2006 by Daniel Dessinger

I recently read about trials and tribulations of Saves The Day at rollingstone.com. I first heard about the band from this cool guy named John that I met in Albertslund, Denmark. It was 2001, I was studying for a semester in Denmark, and I met a fellow student with long blonde hair from Ohio. It seems like everything not Vegas, California, or New York comes from Ohio. Salt of the earth, I suppose. Anyhow, John is the kind of guy who makes friends quickly and is easy to get along with. We started talking about music, he mentions his favorite band, Saves The Day, and badaboom - there you have it. How an Ohio guy knows about indie New Jersey punk rockers is beyond me, but he did. I was in my "download-every-possible-song-for-free" mode, so I searched for the band and grabbed some of their stuff. That was my intro to the band. I thought they were okay... nothing sensational. I had just discovered Incubus at the same time (yeah, I was behind on that one) and they definitely took first place. Anyways, Rolling Stone says that the band got screwed by bad timing. They produced their first major label album in 2003. The label was DreamWorks Records and the album was In Reverie. Apparently, DreamWorks Records was bought out within days of the band's first release. Interscope absorbed the label, and somehow the band suffered for it. I'm still trying to make sense of that part. Maybe it was just that they lost the guys who were dedicated to selling their music to radio stations and MTV. Whatever the case, frontman and songwriter Chris Conley received word that they needed to start thinking about the next album. It was all downhill from there. Interscope dropped the band within weeks of its first major release. Dane Smith reports that, "Without a label, the group decided to make a bold move: They put all the money they had left into building their own recording studio." Not bad. Hats off to them, regardless of the end results. I respect the willingness to risk everything (except one's marriage and other people) to accomplish one's dreams. The band decided to make their own cheap albums and continue touring. They had a good sized fan base already. Conley locked himself in a room and forced himself to write and write and write. Ironically, the storm he was going through gave him plenty of material, and a new album was born - Sound the Alarm. Dane Smith quoted him as saying, "The two titles say it all. In Reverie is like you're in a dream-like state, and Sound the Alarm is 'wake the f--- up'." Saves The Day releases their new album this week on their previous, indie label, Vagrant. For now, they are satisfied with an indie label and a meek fan base. But no one is likely to stay small for long if they get covered on Rolling Stone's website. Seriously, how many of you are going to listen to their music just because Rolling Stone considered them important enough to mention? Obviously, I haven't listened to the new album yet, so I won't go telling you whether or not to buy it. Personally, the lyric samples I read sounded a bit melodramatic - something about people cracking his ribs with a wrench. I don't even have any of their music on my computer any more. I can't say if I'd like them more now than I would have five years ago when I first heard and dismissed them. But I have to give them props for sticking in there and seeing their passion through. I'd love to know how they chose their name.