Sonburn Road Journal

We've enjoyed our 2 days off here in Franklin, TN and now it's back to the road. We leave in a few hours and head for Springfield, IL for a few days and then on to Texas for a marathon of shows. We will be playing all the shows listed on the website plus a few more fill shows that are yet to be determined.

We will begin pre-production on the bus on this road trip. This means we will use the mini studio in the back of the bus to lay down rough tracks of our songs. We will use these tracks to determine the exact tempo and arrangement of each song, as well as work on our new stuff. Then, when we get back, we'll begin working in the studio and continue to do that as well as play a few spot shows through the end of the month of November.

It's hard to believe we've been here a month, but we still have so much work to do. I'll hopefully talk to you soon!

Adam

Here we are in Sioux Center, Iowa and it's about 12 degrees. We are now frozen. We're in a student's house here at Dorht College and are about to eat hamburgers before the show.
The show last night in Branson was awesome! We got most of it on video and we rocked the place. Oh yeah, By The Tree was decent too. :)

So we're going back to Arkansas tonight after the show for another After Dark show, then back to Tennessee for a day off. Our expectations for this CD are growing every day and we can't wait to get in the studio. All the guys in both bands are getting along surprisingly well and we are all learning from each other.

I just wanted to say HI to all you Bridge people here on this Sunday night...I miss you guys and miss my church.

Talk to you soon,
Adam

It's a beautiful afternoon here in Branson, Missouri. Outside the rain and leaves are falling all around. We're watching football at a friends house and are leaving right now to go prep for the show. I'll let you know how the show goes asap.
By the way, we are all addicted to sweet tea now.

Adam

We are in Cincinnati right now about to get in a van to go to the show. We are staying at the Marriot hotel right now, but will be driving to Branson, MO tonight after the show. The last week has been great and we've been playing to crowds of 2,000 plus people each night. From Alabama to South Carolina to two shows in Mississippi it's been a good week. The events we are playing at are called "After Dark" and we play, By the Tree plays, and special guest speaker Joe White tells the story of Jesus through the perspective of a Roman cross builder. It is really a privelege to be a part of these events and the students at the universities are responding to it very well.

Ok, well time is short so I'll say goodnight. We miss you all very much in record-breaking-heat Phoenix while we freeze here in 40 degree Ohio. Cody says he hates Ohio cause it's the coldest place we've been so far. :)

Till we chat again...
Adam

Sorry it's been 10 days since my last post, but I promise I haven't had access to any internet. We're living in the stone age here. :) We were on the road for a while and since we've been back I've checked the entire house that we're staying at for a phone jack and there is not one to be found. We're staying in an older house with no phone. Weird.
Anyway, I'm here at Justin's fiancee's house in the country on top of a mountain overlooking Tennessee and we're about to eat dinner and make a huge bonfire because that's what you do here in the country. All is well with the boys in the band and we've gotten used to living together in close, close proximity.

So it's even more fun on the road when you get to play songs. Dallas was fun, Oklahoma was huge (about 1000 people), and Illinois was the most fun so far. We leave Friday night to go on the road for 3 weeks straight and we can't wait. We have written 3 new songs for the album and are working with Chuck(our producer) on ironing out the songs for the CD. There is a studio in the back of the tour bus so we can record any ideas that we have on the road. We are hoping to have all new songs on this CD with the exception of Love Song.

Starbucks is the place to hang here in Franklin. We go there about every day to see who's there and to find out what to do. We've seen a ton of people in different bands there and meet them and tell them about our adventure. We even saw our friends from Phoenix last night Sky Harbor (formerly known as Anthem). We can't wait to go on the road again and all of us are anxious about recording the new CD. God is really blessing us with new song ideas and has placed people in our lives to make this experience so amazing.

Thanks for checking in...I'll find places on the road to keep you updated.
First stop is Birmingham, Alabama where we play with Everyday Sunday, then it's off to South Carolina. Oh yeah, one more thing...We've all gotten really good at HALO (well, all of us except Jordan, his player's name is TARGET) he still beats me at All-Star Baseball though. They have an X-Box on the bus and that's pretty much all we've played on the road, so beware when we get back. :)

Talk to you soon, I hope.

Adam

Ok, real quick before we head out the door to go to Dallas...I forgot to mention that we wrote our first song of the road a few days ago in Georgia. It's called Finish Last and will be on the new CD. I hope you guys are as excited as we are for the new CD.

When we're not on the bus, we're staying with Justin Unger, singer/songwriter from the band Across the Sky. He is a great guy and lives in Franklin, TN, just a few minutes south of Nashville. Franklin is the nicest city in America. For real. He took us on a tour of the rich peoples' houses and we were in awe. Let me just say that Alan Jackson has the biggest house I've ever seen. :)

We are confirmed to play in Dallas, so we are stoked about that! I've been talking with Chuck all the time about CD stuff and we are working on pre-production right now (i.e. getting the songs polished and perfect before we actually go into the studio.) Please email us if you want... sonburnband@hotmail.com

I'm not sure when my next post will be, could be tomorrow, could be next week. :) So much is happening that I almost have to update this thing every day or it gets out of control and looks like I'm writing a novel.

We're thinking about all of you as we enjoy the 65 degree weather. haha.
Adam

Ok, time to write a small book...So we've been here for almost 4 days now and a ton of stuff has happened. I know all of you are wondering what's going on and I'm sorry, but I haven't had internet access until today. I really do want to write stuff on here every day, but it may not happen. Anyways, bad news first...We haven't actually played a show yet, but we should get our first taste of actually playing in a different state on Monday in Dallas. The show in Atlanta wound up being not as big as we anticipated (like 1,000 people instead of a lot more) and we were bumped to the side stage and our slot was from 1:30am to 2am. At about 10:30pm, after Sonicflood played, everybody left. We were supposed to be on the Late Night stage with John Reuben, but we decided to just wait until the next concert opportunity to play. Then, today we were supposed to play a show at Middle Tennessee State University with By the Tree, but we showed up in the bus and they had a 10x10 stage with 2 speakers and no people, so we didn't stay there either. Sounds kind of weird, but it really wasn't a good situation and the promoter didn't keep his end of the contract.
Ok, on to the good stuff...The tour bus is AMAZING. My bed is sooooo comfy and it's a feeling like no other to go to sleep in one state and wake up in another. so fun. Nashville is AMAZING. We are all having the time of our lives, the weather is perfect, the people are great, By the Tree has been awesome, now all we have to do is start playing shows. Actually, we did get to play once. It was a rehearsal at Sound Check Studios in Nashville for 3 hours through the best sound system we've ever played through. It was so cool. This was the same place that all the huge name artists practice and run through their entire productions for their road shows.
That and the bus are the highlights so far. We are going out tonight to check out some local bands and then it's on the bus tomorrow afternoon to head for Texas. We'll keep you posted on what all happens while we're on the road.
By the way, the Oklahoma show has been moved from Wednesday to Tuesday of that same week. We should start recording at the end of this month and into November, so we'll let you know how that goes.

So much is happening that it's hard to capture it all in a few paragraphs. Thanks for all your prayer support.

Adam