THE WAKING HOURS

At the very core, The Waking Hours are three Los Angeles transplants with incredibly catchy, guitar-driven power pop songs. Originally from Richmond, VA, Tom Richards (guitar), Ricky Tubb (drums) and Lisa Mychols (bass) create energetic music influenced by the likes of The Beatles, The Jam, Sonic Youth, The Sex Pistols and Guided By Voices ­ a mix of melodic British rock and post-punk.

Over the years, they have garnered a loyal following through hard work and raucous live shows, playing with bands like Phantom Planet and Maroon5. While their live shows work well as a three-piece, the band went all out on their recorded work. "When we recorded our last CD, The Good Way, we really pulled out all the stops -- harmony guitar leads, mellotrons, organs, pianos and layered backing vocals," said Richards. "We love that stuff for the studio, but live, we're a rock and roll band. There's something about the chemistry of one guitar, bass and drums that really feels natural to us. It's more open, wild, aggressive and free."

With a little bit of networking in Hollywood with music supervisors, they've also been able to place many of their songs into films and TV ­ the latest placement in the next National Lampoon film, The Trouble With Frank, starring Jon Bon Jovi, Cary Elwes and Estella Warren.

Tom Richards and Ricky Tubb recently took some time out to share some insight to songwriting, networking and relocating to find their audience.

By Jin Moon


What do you think sets The Waking Hours apart from others?
Tom Richards: A lot of bands play upbeat, melodic pop, but I think our delivery is what makes us unique. We really have an aggressively raw and sometimes downright violent live show. It's our trademark. That's part of how we express our passion for what we're doing. The last show we played had a white padded wall on the sides, and it looked like a horror movie afterwards -- covered in blood from doing windmills with my playing hand.

How did your interest in music begin? What are some of your earliest memories of music?
Ricky Tubb: My interest in music began after hearing stuff from the 70's like The Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" and Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy." The first record I ever owned, my mom bought me -- Elvis's Golden Hits. The first record I ever bought on my own was Kiss's Alive II. From then on, I was a fanatic, and I had all of their records. My older brother Michael was in an awesome band called The Dads. They were doing their thing back in the early 80's in Richmond, VA -- total Beatles-influenced pop. That's when I got the calling.
Richards: I remember being about 6 and seeing The Monkees television show for the first time. It blew me away. That was sort of my first realization of 60's music. That got me into the Beatles, The Who, Bob Dylan, then later punk and so on. Also, all three of us used to get in trouble in grade school for playing drums on our desks with pencils.

What was the inspiration for The Good Way?
Richards: We wanted to really make our "dream record." On our first CD we stayed very basic in the instrumentation as we wanted it to be as close to the live show as possible. On this CD we allowed ourselves to experiment with different instruments and sounds. We pulled out all the stops without getting completely crazy about it. We ended up only using about half of the stuff we recorded for each song, but it was great to have that kind of freedom. We were working in our own studio, not having to watch the clock, and that makes a really big difference.

How does a Waking Hours song typically get written?
Richards: We write them either in practice from jamming, or on our own, and then we bring them in. We never sit down and say, "Let's write a song." We like to write at the moment of inspiration, whenever it chooses to visit us.

What is the most personal song on the album to you?
Richards: "Everything's Alright Forever." It's about death and dying, but it wears a mask lyrically so it's not literal. It just drops hints here and there with imagery, coming across as a song about losing someone you love. I hope it's universal in that respect. I wrote this song the last few months my father was alive, and I knew he wouldn't be alive much longer. The inspiration for the song came from that, and you can hear it in the lyrics.

Do you find you start with lyrics or with the music?
Tubbs: For me it's always the vocal hook first.
Richards: It happens both ways. For lyrics, sometimes I'm reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to music and one line really sparks my imagination. I might keep that on file in my head for years before I actually use it in a song. For music and melodies, sometimes I'm jamming on my guitar, just humming randomly and some little melodic twist hits me, and it sparks my imagination enough to pursue the idea by demoing it. Then if it's good, I'll put the time and energy into making it a full-blown song.

How did you get your songs into so many films and TV shows?
Tubbs: It's been a long, slow road that has led us to where we are now. It's really a result of the networking that we've been able to do over the past four years that we've been in Los Angeles. We've now placed 10 of the 14 songs on The Good Way in commercial film, trailers, TV, DVD and video game releases, plus a few new songs. At least three of our songs have received multiple placements ­ especially "Sunshine," a song Tom and I co-wrote.
Richards: Moving out to L.A. really opened up a lot of great opportunities for us. We received some money from an inheritance so we put it towards our dream and printed 10,000 promo CDs, handing them out all over L.A. That got things started and opened a few doors as they made their way into a few music supervisors' hands, but I have to give our manager, Adam Sloat, most of the credit on really working our catalog and being very hands on about getting our music out there. It takes a lot of time, but if you stick with it, the payoff can be big. With the help of Adam and through our own promotional efforts, we've developed relationships with several music supervisors, a couple local music pluggers and brokers and a wonderful indie publisher ­ PEN Music Group. Everyone has brought something to the table.

You've played music in both Richmond and L.A. What are the similarities and differences between the two music scenes?
Richards: I think there's a much bigger all-ages draw in L.A. Richmond rarely had many all-ages shows while we were there, only for the punk scene, so it was hard for a pop band like us to really break into that market. L.A. has a huge all-ages market that supports guitar pop in a big way. Plus, it has a healthy 21+ scene, so it's the best of both worlds. We came to town and found this scene by playing with bands like Rooney, Phantom Planet and Maroon5. They have all gone on to major label deals and a new set of bands has emerged to carry the torch, though we are all working towards the same goal of national exposure.