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Article Published by Houston Press
April 12, 2016
Written by Matthew Keever
A native Houstonian, Brian Barett returned to the Bayou City after college. It was here that he reunited with an old high school friend and band mate, guitarist Trace Sisson. That same year, Barett and Sisson met Omar Lopez, and the three decided to play music together.

Bassist Kenneth Conlon and keyboardist Frank Vasquez were then added to the ensemble, freeing up Lopez to focus on his vocals and developing the showmanship of a front man. Six years and three albums later, the band is finally seeing some success.

Lost Element was formed in 2010, and the group spent its first year writing and cutting its teeth on what Barett calls “crappy shows.” But in 2011, the band released debut EP Back Again, which caught the ear of local radio star Rod Ryan.

“He took the time to come speak with us and tell us he thought we had something,” Barett says of the lead morning DJ on 94.5 The Buzz. “We instantly clicked with Rod, and more than anything we liked him as a person.”
With Ryan’s help and influence, Lost Element was presented with a number of opportunities they would hot have otherwise been exposed to, namely the radio personality’s 10-year reunion show and four stints at The Buzz’s annual Bud Light Weenie Roast festivals.

“When you’re a band that pours your blood, sweat and tears into this for years, it really means a lot to have someone there like Rod that believes in you,” Barett says. “It’s important that you surround yourself with good people in this industry, and Rod is exactly that.”

Back Again even won Lost Element “Best New Band of the Year” honors from The Buzz. Hoping to capitalize on the spark, the band spent the next two years touring the world and honing is sound, which Barett says they really discovered in 2014 when the group began working with producer Bryce Bordone.
Though the band’s brand-new EP, Stereo Dream, is technically their third release, Lost Element prefers to consider it a fresh start with a refined sound. It’s only seven tracks, but Barett says that somewhere between 20 and 30 songs were written during the years it took to craft.

“There were quite a few ‘transition’ songs written that, even though they didn’t make the album, played a key role in transitioning our sound into what it is today,” Barett says. “The last song that was written on the EP was written over a year ago, so most of the tracks have been written for a while.”

But the time was well spent, and the finished project sounds big. It’s the kind of pop that builds into epic, uplifting choruses that implore listeners to sing along and sway their heads back and forth. And at its heart, Stereo Dream is an album about chemistry — the chemistry shared by the band and communicated to fans.

Fresh off Stereo Dream’s completion, Lost Element is currently working out details for a tour to promote their new work. In the meantime, they have three upcoming performances in Houston: tomorrow night at Warehouse Live’s Green Room; April 30 at the UT Health Stomp Out Stroke Festival; and May 29 with the Flaming Lips and Lucero at White Oak Music Hall.

“Each one of us was inspired at one point by a band that mesmerized huge crowds in arenas and large pavilions,” Barett says. “These experiences are unforgettable. They stay with you and allow you to relive the wonder of that day, even if for a moment, and we strive to create these very experiences for our fans, old and new alike.”

Click here to read the original article
http://www.houstonpress.com/music/lost-element-hope-to-reach-new-heights-with-stereo-dream-8289161

Article posted by The Radio Contraband
April 14, 2016
Writte by Carl C. Sundberg
When The Hounds of Jezebel get the party started, they get the party started right. As the Vinyl in the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas began to fill for the Awards Ceremony on the final night of the 2016 RadioContraband Convention, something unimaginable to any other awards show was about to happen. A song was about to be played. We’re not talking some auto-tuned diva in a ball gown, no princess chart-topper squeezing out some putrid glitter hit to a bunch of suits checking their smart phones.

No. This was not how the night would proceed.

This night was for rock. And the song, well it was a song so vulgar, so off the charts profane, that it could never be played on the radio without heavy editing and near constant beeps. It was raw. Fast. Loud. And no one was prepared for it.

With the help from their good friend and host of the awards ceremony – Lou Brutus – nationally-syndicated host of the hardDrive radio show, who was dressed in a tuxedo with the tails, The Hounds of Jezebel, fronted by the hilariously maniacal Brutus, unleashed the thunder and kicked out their jam in full punk rock fashion, complete with Mr. Brutus taking on a Johnny Rotten-esque accent as they tore through, “Go Fuck Yourself (The Award Song)”.

The crowd all turned to the stage. Did that just happen? Yes. Yes it did. By the end of the song, the crowd full of all these bands and veterans in the rock industry, they were singing along. It was the greatest start to any awards show that has ever taken place in the history of the world.

“That is a pretty funny story how that all came about,” recalls John Curry, singer and guitarist of Hounds of Jezebel. “Lou knew we would be playing first that night and having never met him, he called me up to see if we would be interested in doing this song he had written lyrics for. We had never met and I told the guys in the band about it. They were like ‘Is he gonna send us a copy to rehearse?’ and I told them he just had lyrics and we’d figure it out when we got to Vegas. A little reluctant we agreed we’d give it a try. So we get to Vegas on Thursday and meet with Lou at the bar before the kickoff party and he tells us the lyrics while we all break out in laughter.’

‘We all start drinking and never discuss it again the rest of the night thinking we’d have plenty of time at soundcheck! Well……as we all know……shit runs behind when production is involved and needless to say we had literally about a 5 minutes before the show started to put it together!! I think it went pretty well all things considering! Lou is a great guy and we had a blast doing it!”

That was just the beginning of a crazy night in Vegas for the Hounds. After wrapping up the awards show with a raging set, things got crazy for Hounds of Jezebel. Well, for Mr. Curry at least. Perhaps you’ve seen the Facebook clip of him sleeping in his underwear outside the hotel elevators. Maybe not. Either way, we’ll get to that tale soon enough.

The Hounds of Jezebel, as you can imagine, are the kind of rock band that makes you believe in rock again. They don’t pull punches and they aren’t afraid of crossing the line. They rock like a band is supposed to. Full tilt. Balls out. Pure Rock Fury. Just like a band from Houston, Texas should. “There are a lot of great bands in Houston,” says Curry. “The thing with Houston is that it’s so spread out that it’s sometimes hard to put on big shows because everyone is spread out everywhere. You can literally play North and have a totally different crowd than when you play South or East or West. We generally try to do at least one big centralized show about every 3 months to get all of our fans in one place. If you play too much people take it for granted and stop coming, so if you make the show a special event that doesn’t happen every week you usually get a great crowd.”

Starting sometime in 2012, Hounds of Jezebel is still a relatively young band, but that doesn’t mean this is their first rodeo. “We were all in different bands,” recalls Curry as he explains their early days. “Mike Neyra, our drummer and Chris Loveless, our guitarist were in Earshot and the Daniel Wills, our bass player and myself actually played for Scott Stapp. We all had similar displeasing experiences and after everything fell apart I came back to Houston. I didn’t play music for like 2 years but it was really taking a negative toll on personal life. I called a friend to see if he’d be interested in jamming and he had too much on his plate but told me about two guys that were looking to do something. We had never met but got together at one of my acoustic shows so they could see me sing. I guess they dug it because literally the next day we wrote a check for a rehearsal space and wrote 6 songs in 6 days. The rest is history!”

The story of the band’s name is kind of funny according to Curry. “First of all every band knows how hard it is to come up with a name. We were no different. I’d say 3 months in we were still getting nowhere and when I say nowhere we had some pretty shitty ideas. One day I was talking with my wife and she recommended something to do with animals or the earth. I loved Hounds. I liked The Hounds of the Baskervilles and was wanting something similar. I was laying on the couch one day watching ‘Waterboy’ and when his mother said ‘Sep some godless Jezebel like you’ a lightbulb went off!!! Hounds of Jezebel!!! I remembered her being in the bible but after reading the story of dogs eating her body after her death I loved it even more!!! I went to rehearsal to convince the guys that this was it!!! They were not impressed to say the least. I told everyone to leave practice that night and ask at least 5 or 10 people what they thought and we would reconvene at the next rehearsal. Well apparently everyone loved it and Hounds of Jezebel was born. The name definitely grew on everyone and now it’s who we are!”

Their sonic fingerprints are diverse, but familiar and firmly rooted in a bluesy-grooved, whiskey-soaked gospel thunder, belting out sweaty anthems, meaty riffs and sorrowful ballads that would fit perfectly in any southern bar at last call. The Hounds of Jezebel weave tunes for the beer drinkers and hell raisers of the world.
“We definitely aren’t reinventing the wheel or doing anything totally different,” admits Curry. “But I do think we have our own sound that’s all ours. You can definitely hear 90’s, Southern Rock, Blues, and maybe sometimes a touch of country! At the end of the day we are fans of music so what you hear is what you get. I know that each of us have been influenced by many different artists and if you hear an influence here or there it’s our way of saying thanks!”

When it comes to songwriting Curry’s ego doesn’t get in the way of a good story, although at times his writing gets a little personal. “I read a lot about current events and history and stuff and usually from a lyrical standpoint use that,” Curry says. “There are the occasional autobiographical songs though. Those guys make it pretty easy to write. They come up with such cool music and I close my eyes and picture how it makes me feel, I tell a story and then voila. It usually comes together pretty effortlessly! We truly love writing music together!”

Their first album – “Vol. 1” – was released in 2012 and on April 1st of this year, they celebrated the unleashing of their next release, “The Shakedown” a five-song EP, in their hometown of Houston with a rowdy EP Release Show at The Last Concert Cafe. “We really feel like the songs on this EP are really showing the growth in our sound compared to our first release,” says Curry. “So far we’ve been getting the same response from our fans!!! It really means a lot when you really take your time creating something special to you, and everyone else takes notice and feels it’s just as special to them as it is to us!!!! As far as the show the night of the release…WE ALWAYS ROCK!”

One of the highlights of that EP Release Show was the debut of the Hounds’ first video, “The Shakedown” which involves a pretty epic trainwreck and lots of fire set to the rippin’ title track of their new EP. “We have this old RV that we wanted to burn down and I contacted the city to see how we could do that legally and shoot a live performance video around it,” recalls Curry. “Well we ended up finding this other location with train cars off of the track and turned over school buses that looked like the Zombie Apocalypse! We just wanted to do a live performance that didn’t look like every other band’s live performance video and I think we accomplished that! It was an amazing shoot! All of the people involved, cast and crew, were absolutely amazing to work with!”

The future looks bright for Hounds of Jezebel, will be rolling through a town or city near you soon, including the world famous Whiskey A Go Go on the Sunset Strip in LA this weekend, where they will be taking the stage with Metalachi, Dirty Machine and Bad Planet.

Now, about that video of John Curry sleeping in his underwear outside the elevators at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. “That same Thursday night we had the kickoff party, where we met you as well, and being a rock band from Texas we like to drink,” remembers Curry. “Unfortunately for me, sometimes when I drink I sleep walk. We had been partying and the guys were tired so they went to bed and I went to sit at the Poker tables. I got back to the room around 3 am and went to bed. At some point I got up to use the restroom – asleep – and after finishing instead of taking a left back to the bed, I took a right and walked right out of the room in my underwear. I continued to sleep walk all the way down the hall and post up on the couch right in front of the elevators!!!! The guys found me at around 8am sleeping on the couch in my underwear right in front of the casino elevators!!! So they took video of me and posted it online! Guess sometimes what happens in Vegas makes it’s way to the internet!!! LOL!!!!!!”

Click here to read the original article
http://radiocontraband.com/18047-2/

Article posted by Bandwidth Culture
September 28, 2015
Writte by Kat Eckerson
VerseCity, is an Alternative/Pop band from Houston, TX. They’ve got the sound to make it to the top with their catchy hooks and heavy inspirations from Twenty One Pilots. We recently got to do an email interview with the guys, as they released their newest single titled ‘Be Real’.

1. Please introduce yourself and your role(s) in the band.
Micaiah (Vocals), Brett (Drums), Soulo (Guitar), Brian (Bass), Mike (Guitar)

2. How did you all come together/meet?
We are soul mates and life lead us together haha.

3. How did you guys come up with naming the band VerseCity?
The band was started on campus at UniVERSITY of Houston and we felt like our
music had a lot of diVERSITY stylistically. So we took the word ‘versity’ and
made it VerseCity. Verse representing song writing and City representing our
hometown of Houston, Tx.

4. For new fans, how would you describe the band and the sound?
Alternative/Pop (Passionate, Fun, Real, Organic)

5. When you all came together, what was the inspiration(s) that went into creating the
sound for VerseCity?
None of us grew up together so we all come from completely different
backgrounds. This is what we feel makes our music special, we are all inspired
by different things and when we put all of our inspirations together we are able to
create our unique sound.

6. What were the three main albums that really helped define/shape the band or yourself as a musician?
That is an impossible question… but “Morning View” by Incubus is definitely one
of the three. The other two spots are a tie between 25-50 different albums
ranging from Led Zepplin all the way to Maroon 5.

7. Where are you hoping to push the band and where would you like to see the band
head?
Up. Up the charts, Up in touring, Up in fanbase/friendships, Up in songwriting &
creativity, We have to keep “Movin Up”. See what we did there…
(http://j.mp/VCityWatch)

8. What was the inspiration for the new single “Be Real”?
Be Real is the story of someone looking for Purpose. Everyone has been there at
least once. I (Micaiah) wrote it based on my search for God and finding purpose
in him when I was a bit younger and livin crazy. I left the lyrics vague in a sense
so people could relate it to their personal situation. One of the hardest parts of
life is finding your purpose and then having faith that it’s right or Real.

9. What do you find to be the most difficult part of the recording process?
Waiting…. We don’t have Millions of dollars to throw at producers to say “Finish
this by next week!” So as a independent artist who is trying to “Ball on a Budget”,
we often have to wait in line to get our songs finished. Plus there is often 10-15
different mixes/versions of a song before it is finished and each one has to be
listened to 10+ times to figure out every detail that needs to be fixed so by the
time we release it, we almost don’t want to hear it again for a few months haha.

10. As an up and coming band, who would be apart of your dream tour?
Our live show is one of the strongest elements of our band so if we could get on
tour with say Fall Out Boy, Maroon 5, 5SOS, Pvris, Paramore, or Twenty One
Piots… There is no doubt in my mind we would kill it!

11. What is the latest album you have purchased and why?
Bring Me the Horizon & MisterWives. Mainly just because both were recently
released haha. But both are pretty good!

12. What does the future hold for VerseCity?
The near Future probably involves some Pizza or Mexican food… After that it will
include touring, new music, & a lot hard work!

13. Anything else you would like to add?
To anyone reading this, know that we want to build a relationship with you. If
you’re a fan or interested in our music know that to us this is not just about the
music but more like a movement where music may be the most important factor!
We want to build real relationships with people that will help us grow and build
this thing together. So feel free to tweet us or leave a comment on our Facebook
or Instagram page. We answer back, try us!

Click here to read the original article
http://bandwidthculture.wix.com/home#!VerseCity-Be-Real/c1mdd/560647550cf2f0ed7a2233cd

Article posted by Diffuser.fm
April 7, 2015
Written by Chuck Armstrong
Hailing from Houston, Lost Element are gearing up for the release of their debut full-length, Stereo Dream, this summer. Perfectly blending elements of pop and alternative rock, Lost Element have quickly left their mark on the scene with their compelling sound. Today (April 7), Diffuser is excited to partner with the quintet to premiere the disc’s new track, “Twenty Five”.

From the infectious rhythms to the ultra-relatable lyrics, “Twenty Five” will likely find its way into your regular rotation this week. “This song was inspired by the struggle that all people go through to find their identity in life,” drummer Brian Barrett tells us. “Everyone has highs and lows, but the important message that this song portrays is to always look forward and make the most of the hand you were dealt. If you are true to yourself then people will appreciate you for who you are!”

Lost Element have spent most of their time on the road, sharing stages and tours with acts like 10 Years, Awolnation, 311, Hoobastank and many more. With the impending release of Stereo Dream, the band has no plans to take any breaks; make sure to stay up-to-date with everything happening in Lost Element’s world — including their soon-to-be scheduled tour itinerary — at this location.
“Twenty Five” is available for download on iTunes and streaming on Spotify.

Click here to read the original article
http://diffuser.fm/lost-element-twenty-five-song-premiere/

Article posted by Dailyunsigned.com
September 10, 2015
Written by Chuck Armstrong
Today’s New Music Discovery on Daily Unsigned, VerseCity is an awesome Alt Pop Rock band that hails from Houston, Texas.

The landscape of music as it relates to what is considered “Amazing” these days have faltered considerably when it comes to radio airplay (mouthful of words).

After listening to over 2,000 bands last week, VerseCity captured my attention with their ready for radio songs. Please note that VerseCity was only 1 of 2 bands that made the cut out of the mass submissions.

If you are a fan of songs that are packed with sticky lyrics, spot on vocals and huge choruses, you will love VerseCity as much as I do.
VerseCity is your New Music Discovery on Daily Unsigned.

Link to the original article
http://dailyunsigned.com/versecity-new-music-discovery/