My high school experience was rough because I was always on edge. The only time I ever really felt relaxed was when I would lie on the floor of my room with my eyes closed in the dark with thunder rolling in the background of Lifehouse’s “From Where You Are.” I never quite related to it lyrically, but the emotion always calmed me down in a way that very few things ever could. With that said, I’m clearly a fan so it was kind of surreal when I got to talk with vocalist and guitarist Jason Wade about the group and their upcoming projects.
As the new album and subsequent tour near, we actually spent a little time reflecting. I noticed that they had recently found and posted a picture of some old memorabilia and wanted to know more. “The bass player and I were rehearsing last week and I started to go through all of my old journals to see if I could find the original lyrics like ‘Everything’ or ‘Hanging by the Moment.’ I couldn’t find ‘Hanging by the Moment,’ but I did find that song ‘Everything,’” Wade recalls. That wasn’t all they found, though. “I found ‘From Where You Are’ … I found ‘Broken’ and they’re all in this really weird, old, leather journal, and they’re all falling apart so it’s kind of cool.”
“Broken” actually holds a special place in my heart as well. To add to my excitement, I found out that it was their favorite to play live. “Every single night I had this really kind of insane energy. That’s one song that I just never get tired of because you never know what’s gonna happen when we play it. It just feels that the crowd really connects to it and we connect to it as well,” Wade describes.
To add to this nostalgia, their music was used in so many TV shows, trailers, movies and an Allstate commercial. They’ve toured briefly with the Rolling Stones and opened for Coldplay. They’ve had 16 years of success, toured all over and overcome all of the struggles that come with it and interchanged some band members. On top of that, Wade and I agreed that the biggest struggle of all was accepting the fact that some people don’t know who Paul McCartney is—it’s a tragedy. That leaves one question: What’s next?
A new album and some more touring, of course! Out of the Wasteland, the group’s first album since 2012, will be released at the end of May. Wade says it was a very different experience making this album.
“Historically, the band starts writing with either an acoustic guitar or a piano, and then, the song is written. We go learn all of our parts to pre-production and then record the song,” he explains. “And on this album, in particular, I kind of wanted to mix things up. So I go into the studio with just an engineer and either sit down at the piano or come up with rhythms and different sonic textures just to kind of make the process more interesting.”
Which makes sense considering that when you’ve been writing music for a decade and a half, it’s easy to go back to the same style and lyrics. Wade has no intention of being a formulaic writer. “I hate that. I never wanted to be in that situation because I feel like it takes all the fun out of it for the band. And when the band is not having fun, then the fans feel that and they move on so I think that the people are very perceptive and they can tell when you’re still kind of enjoying the musical process versus just going through the motion,” he says.
Money has never been the point for the band anyway. “I think that being successful is really creating something that’s pure, and that’s honest, and that you want to create for the right reasons. If people like it, then great and if they connect to it, that’s amazing,” Wade says. “I think you can make an album that is just filled with shallow pop songs, and they could make a lot of money, but I don’t feel like the band would be happy doing that. I think that we really feel alive when the music is inspired, and so the fact that we made an inspired record, I feel like we’ve already kind of crossed that threshold of success and hope. If people like it, great! But [if not]at least we’re coming from a really honest, pure, artistic expression this time.”
Once the album drops, the real work begins. “The tour starts June 19th. We’re going [to]start the circuit off by opening up on the Nickelback tour. We’ll only be playing for like 45 minutes to an hour. It’s just kind of like a warm-up of the summer and then, after that, we’re gonna try to go over to Europe and do some headlining shows over there and then come back to the states and then do a full headlining run in the U.S. We’re gonna be busy for the next year.”
Though Lifehouse have been incredibly successful and have a bright future, Wade stresses that it’s not about the money and fame. “You don’t think about making money or having hits. You put some chords together and come up with the lyrics and all the things you feel like you’re creating something and you have an outlet for your emotions and that’s the real currency. That’s the real magic. To be able to kind of do that and have some sort of artistic expression. I think that’s everything.”
