This Is “See You Later”, I’m Not Into Goodbyes.

Hey guys! Marshall here! It’s been a really fun few years as Sound of the Stereo! I’ve had the chance to travel to different states with my best friends, put out an album that I love with all my heart and I’ve met so many awesome people. It’s time to cut to the chase though —

In July I decided to start a side project to Sound of the Stereo and write a more serious style. I was going to do this with my friend Austin, but unfortunately he was too busy to do so. As an alternative, I decided to ask Deon to re-join Sound of the Stereo and start the style change as Sound of the Stereo. We went to the studio and recorded Secrets and then it finally hit me — I was in a band before this band with my best friends. I liked playing music just to play, not to constantly keep myself busy. I started to miss the bond my old band had and I hoped we could figure it out after our upcoming “Secrets Tour”. The tension between the four of us could be cut with a knife and that’s never a good thing in a band.

Unfortunately that came to a close early. Deon decided to part with us again to keep up with his job so we had a fill in drummer play a show with us in Indiana. Basically what ended up happening was one of the members of this band didn’t show up until almost two hours after we were supposed to leave. We went to the show and I’ll be honest, it was awful. We played a small crowd with a bad sound system. Our fill in didn’t know our songs very well and some of the people involved with the band got too drunk to keep playing and embarrassed not only themselves but our band as a whole. I decided then and there that Sound of the Stereo has run it’s course.

I started this project when I was 15. I wrote a “Myspace pop” album at the age of 15 because that’s what I wanted to do. I loved it. I was the happiest kids alive and that was the style I wanted to play. I wanted to give people a reason to smile and a reason to dance. I was living the dream life of a 15 year old boy. I had a great girlfriend, awesome friends and the best home life. I had no reason to be down. Unfortunately growing up set in and real life kicked my ass. All I had was my band to get me by. We went through about 11 different members and fill in’s before it set in that we were too picky. I wanted to play music with dedicated musicians who I could also call my best friends and that was hard to find. We started to settle on people just for the sake of having a band and it got ugly. The point and meaning of Sound of the Stereo was drained.

When I started this band I was about to be a junior in high school. I wanted to make genuine music and get to know everyone of my fans on a personal level. I grabbed my three best friends at the time and we kept this band going. College came around and I replaced that line up with even better friends, but things changed and outside influence caused me to become a different person. I realize now that I started to hate myself and I’m so sorry I let anything like that get the best of me, but you live and you learn. 

After all of these member changes and my urge to write more serious music I feel that it’s time to rip off the band aid. Sound of the Stereo is calling it quits. I’m not saying forever, but it’s quits regardless.

Like I said, it’s been some of the best years of my young life so far. We’ve done a lot of great things and I met my best friends while in this band. Our last show will take place on Sunday, September 21st at Mickey Finns in Toledo. We hope you all can make it out for one last hurrah! If anyone has any further questions PLEASE feel free to ask me via Twitter or Facebook.

I love you all so much and I promise I’ll be making music soon enough. I’ll be back.

-Marshall 

PS; Goodnight Sirens

Studio Day 3

Hi! My name is Marshall. This is my brain!

Today we woke up in Indiana — roughly an hour away from the studio. We got to crash at our good buddy’s house the night before. At 8:30 my alarm went off and I immediately told it to shut the hell up and I fell back asleep. At around 9, I woke Deon and Tony up. We got ready and we were on our way!

First thing on the agenda was to track drums. Mike went over the drums with Deon and Deon started tracking. It didn’t take long, Deon’s a super solid drummer so it was pretty fast. Mike did some drum editing to make it all pretty and on to guitar we were! We started tracking guitar in drop C today. We’ve never done anything like that, so it’s weird. Its a really dark tone. It’s crazy how different this new shit is sounding. We laid down the basic rythem guitar and then we wrote a select few leads. 

Finally we started piano, strings, bells and MIDI. This is ALWAYS my favorite part. We got to lay down some fucking sick string parts today, along with some really creepy piano. Mike and I got to discuss tones and themes as far as stringed instruments went and luckily, he read my mind.

After we finished strings and MIDI we took a few final listens, talked about our future as a band with Mike and we were on our way!

…Or so we thought.

When we got outside at around 10:30 pm, we found that we had locked our keys in our car. Now, I’m not one to play the blame game but it was Deon’s fault.. No, I’m kidding. It wasn’t me though! I would never do such a thing! ANYWAY! We called AAA and had them on their way out, until at about roughly midnight, Mike and Deon took a bunch of rusty old tools, wedged our door open, and we got in.

I’m currently sitting on our friend Kevin’s couch in Indiana watching Jersey Shore with Deon while Tony sleeps in his undies on the opposite side of the room. What a cute guy he is! Tomorrow we go in for a late day. We start tracking vocals at 2 and we meet with Joe at 10:30 pm to finish writing strings and piano. This song is going to be something you guys would never expect to hear from us. I promise.

Welp! It’s about time for me to be hitting the hay! I’m driving us back to Ohio tomorrow at around midnight and if I don’t sleep then I’ll fall asleep at the wheel, crash and break my sternum.

Have a wonderful night ladies and gents. See you guys soon enough!

-Marshall Douglas Traver, yo.

Recording - Days 1 & 2

Hi earth! It’s me — Marshall! On Friday we left for Chicago to record a new single! Myself, Deon and Tony all loaded into a car on Friday night and drove down here. We got in around 9:30 and got the chance to meet up with some really good friends of ours. We went and got pizza and got a super cheap motel. We knew we had to be up Saturday by 9 to get to the studio by noon, but we didn’t wake up until 11:57. Now, when I woke up I was laying in bed with Tony and Deon and there was a cheap hardcore porn playing. It was really funny. 

We got to the studio at 2:30 and met up with our producer and friend, Mike Govaere. We got upstairs and talked about the structure, dynamic and song history. We’re making this song A LOT different than our old stuff so we’re approaching this single as delicate as possible. At around 5 o’clock Mike’s buddy Joe showed up. Mike said he has a lot of cool shit under his belt production and writing wise so he helped us out. Awesome dude. We laid down some scratch vocals and scratch guitar and started to put all the electronic instruments down. We wrote some new melodies and changed some riffs and arrangements around. It was fun. 

Tomorrow we start tracking for real. At noon we kick off with drums. I’ll keep you pretty people updated on our journey. 

I love you.

Slayer \m/

Hey guys! Marshall & Tony here! We’re well aware that we’ve been very under the radar these last few months. Before I continue, I want to say that currently Tony and I enjoying some nachos and they’re delicious. Anyway, first and foremost, I want to apologize for the lack of updates on our band. We really haven’t known what to say because in all honesty we really don’t know what we plan on doing. Let me fill ya’ll in on what’s gone down over the last few months! 

First of all! In March of this year, Deon decided to quit the band to be a ninja. Nah, I’m kidding. But he did leave. He wanted to pursue other options in life and in music as a whole. We decided to go on with just myself, Tony and Jared. In May Jared decided to leave the band and head home to New York to finish up school. That left just Tony and myself (best friends!!!11!!1). We continued on for a little while with a live band and live members. It’s been a great time and we want to thank all of them for helping us out with everything! It’s greatly appreciated. We took a few weeks off to collect our thoughts on what to do as a band and we decided to just write whatever came naturally. Now, as a band we’ve always been pretty happy, laid back people, but for the first time in a long time we were in a slump. Not only musically, but personally. We were each going through our own depressions and problems alike. It was a good time for us to explore writing other styles of music. We’ve spent the last few months trying to construct a full band line up and write new music. When we sat down a few days ago to discuss everything, we had noticed that most of the new songs we had written were more — deep? I don’t know, that sounds pretty lame but I’m really not sure how else to explain it. All of the new stuff turned out being real guitar/piano/orchestral/rock based. No fake drums, no MIDI instruments. Just kind of pop/rock to say the least. All of the topics ended up being a little more organic than the first record. (LET’S TAKE A QUICK PAUSE. I want to explain! Our first record I wrote when I was 15/16, so it was my first time writing a new style. It’s not that I don’t want to write pop music anymore. That’s not the case! Writing this newer style must have just hatched with maturity. Not to leave the old sound out in the dust. Now let’s get back to the post and these nachos!)

So here’s what’s currently going on:

Sunday Tony and myself are driving to Indiana to work with our good friend Jake Renner on recording these new songs. We plan to release them as we would normally release music. Here’s what we haven’t decided though; how we’re going to release it. Now, I know that sentence sounds confusing as a MUG! but! With this new style we want to branch out and adapt new members and a different live feel. So the question we’re asking ourselves as of now is this: Do we release the songs as Sound of the Stereo? Or do we release them under a new name and decided on which band to pursue after we get a chance to experiment? I’ll still be singing and Tony will be playing guitar/back up vocals in whatever we decide to do, so with that being said it won’t change in that aspect. 

So let’s recap! As of now Tony and I are the only members of the band. We’ve been exploring a new, darker style but again, that doesn’t mean we’re not writing our old style anymore. We’ll still write pop music, whether it be next week, next month or next year. We’re still going to be the same old Sound of the Stereo. As of now, we’re just trying some new things. Also! Feel free to leave your opinion on what we should do as far as what band we should release the new T00NZ under. We’re curious as to everyone opinion always. We hope you guys enjoy the new music we’re been writing. It means the world to us and we can’t wait for you to hear it. 

Until next time,

Tony and I love you \m/!!!!!!

PS we also love nachos.