Nashville Band Brings Epic Live Show to FL

By Sasha Savinov for Festively Local

Oftentimes, good things happen by chance. A chance meeting might introduce you to your future roommate, significant other, or even band-mates. Nashville based Lorien is a great example of an accidental meeting turning into something great. According to their biography, “The band approaches their music with a stark honesty not often found in popular music. Their songs are dark, yet optimistic; lush, yet blisteringly powerful.” Their epic live show will be featured on the Peter Pan Stage on Sunday, October 18th from 4:15-5:30 p.m. I caught up with the band to discuss life on the road, the world’s longest tongue-twister, and optimizing social networking sites for bands:

Lorien

According to your band biography, Lorien formed by accident. Could you elaborate on this for our readers and give us an idea of how the band came to be?

We all grew up in different places in the US and all moved to Nashville, TN to attend Belmont University. Kaleb (singer) and Thomas (drummer) were freshman roommates. David (bassist) moved in with them before he knew them in their sophomore year. Chase (guitarist) came the same year and knew Kaleb from high school. Kaleb emailed Cara (pianist) after seeing her perform at a school event. We had one practice and decided to try out being a band and have now been together for 4+ years.

As a touring band, I’m sure you guys spend plenty of time cramped in a van traversing the country from show to show. I’ve never been in a touring band myself, but I’d imagine that the road can be grueling and tough at times. How do you guys keep your sanity while traveling from one gig to another for weeks at a time?

Even though we met randomly and did not know each other very well when the band started, we found that there was a great dynamic with all of our personalities. While some bands seem to have a business relationship, we are a a family and enjoy spending time together (most of the time). Tour is the equivalent of a family vacation that includes a little work. However, it still gets tough sometimes so we have several techniques in keeping our sanity. Some of the more popular activities are…

1. Creating the world’s longest tongue twisters. Example: “super duper purple durple big burping flubber mumbler fumble slumber rubber bumper double bubble baby bumble bee bungee jumping bubble gum bladder dabbler cladder ball”

2. Playing games in the van. Example: Night Crawlers, Pay the Troll Toll, and MASH.

3. Talk about things we haven’t eaten for days. Example: Food

Along with the adversity that comes with spending so much time on the road, I’m sure plenty of hilarious things happen. What’s the funniest “on-tour” story from your years as a touring act?

We find ourselves ending up with an abnormal amount of interesting situations and funny memories from tour. One that comes to mind is from our first tour when we were in Cincinnati, OH. We went to a store called ‘Jungle Jims’ that has a lot of crazy and interesting food selections. We decided to play a game that involved picking the name of another band member out of a hat, not knowing who you have, buying one food item that they have to eat and then revealing the name of the person after all purchases have been made. Some of the things eaten were Red Bean Popsicles, Pickled Pigs Feet, Fish Sauce, Cheddar Cheese Crickets, Crazy Peppers, and Seaweed Soda. All of this was documented first-hand and can be seen in the video section of our website (www.wearelorien.com).

Does Lorien try to recreate the studio sound in a live setting, or vice versa?

We mainly attempt to recreate the sound of the album during live performances while occasionally doing something a little different to make it more interesting for the people that know our albums really well.

Festively Local is all about supporting local musicians, artists, and farmers. As Nashville-ians, where would you recommend our readers go in the Nashville area for the best of each?

Restaurants – PM, Jacksons, McDougals
Markets – Nashville Farmer’s Market, Whole Foods
Art Gallaries – The Frist
Venues – Exit In, 12th and Porter, The End

Your band was recently involved in something called The Mentoring Project. Could you please provide a bit of background about this project and how your band got involved?

The Mentoring Project is an organization started by author Don Miller that exists to provide positive roll models for boys in need of male mentors. A friend of ours created a video for the project and used our song for the video.

This day in age, it is critical for a band to understand new media and how to effectively use it. Lorien seems to be on the ball when it comes to this. How have you utilized social networking sites, YouTube, and other forms of new media to your advantage?

We believe that the main purpose for the social networking sites is to keep in touch with our fans. With tools like Facebook and Twitter we can really keep people informed. The more people know, the more they can have a connection to us and our music. Chase has taken numerous classes on HTML and flash, which has given us the ability to create our website and MySpace in house and stay connected with any new media.

To get connected with Lorien, head on over to their website , where you can check out upcoming tour dates, photos, videos, and get linked up to all of their other sites.

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