The band American Authors says that its new LP, Oh, What A Life, is about the highs and lows we all experience. Just within a week of the album’s release, the group had a chance to experience both peaks and valleys first hand.
On Monday March 3, American Authors sang its hit “Best Day Of My Life” on “Live! with Kelly and Michael” for the show’s post-Oscars special in Los Angeles. The band’s performance received at best, mixed reviews. The next day its debut LP hit stores. The following Monday, Authors returned to the “Live!” set, this time in New York. Things went a lot better, especially when the band was presented with a plaque to mark the single selling 1 million copies in the U.S.
“Strangely enough I think it was just the byproduct of people being overworked and overtired,” drummer Matt Sanchez explained before adding, “Not us by any means, the crew.”
“(The show) hired on a bunch of people from L.A. that aren’t on their normal team,” guitarist James Adam Shelley said. “There was a lot of craziness (for) everybody, so.”
Lead singer Zac Barnett simply chalked the whole ordeal up to “technical difficulties,” and bassist Dave Rublin chimed in, “Yunno, things happen. We’re human.”
A lot has taken place since the four met at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. The many commutes between New York and Massachusetts led the band to drop out of school three-and-a-half years ago, move to Brooklyn, and pursue their dream full time.
“Once we got down here, and started being inspired by the surroundings… the music that we’re creating now is so different than what we started out with seven years ago or so,” Barnett said. “It was just time for a change. We changed our name and became American Authors.”
The quartet hails from all over the country but has taken a liking to their new digs.
“Where we live in Brooklyn is just such a melting pot for artists,” Rublin gushed. The bass player grew up in nearby Maplewood, N.J. “Pottery people, actual painters, and then we have like street musicians and everyone in between; fashion designers and everything. So it’s just a really cool spot to go out to the bars in those areas and be like, running in to random people who’ve done so many things you’ve seen in the city.”
Or in the case of a band that dropped out of college and now has a platinum single to its credit, heard in the city.
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