{"id":27007,"date":"2015-05-26T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T21:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=27007"},"modified":"2015-10-05T20:56:44","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T09:56:44","slug":"jason-wade-of-lifehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2015\/05\/jason-wade-of-lifehouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Wade of Lifehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201cWe spent two years working on this album and couple of times we thought we were finished we scrapped the whole thing and started over again, so we put really our heart and soul into this record and really came up with something that we\u2019re really inspired by and we think something our fans will really appreciate\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From release: Out of the Wasteland is the work of a group that has some history. Los Angeles-based Lifehouse broke through in a big way when \u201cHanging by a Moment,\u201d from their debut album No Name Face, spent 20 weeks in the Top Ten and won a Billboard Music Award for \u201cHot 100 Single of the Year.\u201d<\/strong> Since then, the band has released five more albums, sold over 15 million records worldwide and spun off such hit singles as \u201cYou and Me,\u201d \u201cFirst Time,\u201d and \u201cWhatever it Takes.\u201d Lifehouse is one of the most played artists in the history\u00a0of Hot AC\u00a0with 1.5 million spins and over 1.4 Billion Pandora\u00a0Plays to date.<\/p>\n

At home in LA for the moment before hitting the road we chatted to Jason Wade of Lifehouse about the band\u2019s new album \u2018Out of The Wasteland\u2019 and its creation, becoming independent, touring, playing with Bon Jovi, Jude Cole, the chance of touring Australia, and much more\u2026<\/p>\n

Now your new and forthcoming album is called \u2018Out Of The Wasteland\u2019 can you tell us about the title and what it represents to you?<\/strong>
\nYou know I think \u2018Out Of The Wasteland\u2019 for me just represents a new era for the band, when we started this in 1999 \u2013 2000 we\u2019ve always been on a major label and this is the first time that we\u2019re independent since the inception of the band and it feels so nice to just really take our time with the record. We spent two years working on this album and couple of times we thought we were finished we scrapped the whole thing and started over again, so we put really our heart and soul into this record and really came up with something that we\u2019re really inspired by and we think something our fans will really appreciate, just the overall sounds and textures and it really feels like returning to our roots in a way and just to have full creative control and not to feel like we\u2019re in the back seat of our career and that you\u2019re really driving the ship. I think that\u2019s what the main reason for calling the record \u2018Out Of The Wasteland\u2019 is.<\/p>\n

With this album in the two years since \u2018Almeria\u2019 did you have a set idea of how you wanted it to come together or did you let the process naturally evolve when creating it and let it somewhat put itself together?<\/strong>
\nYou know what? I think it kind of put itself together, taking a couple of years and really having no pressure in the studio, I wrote over sixty five or seventy songs and by the time I brought the band in to help me put everything together it really seems like a collage of everything that we\u2019ve recorded over the last fifteen or sixteen years. There\u2019s textures on this album that span all the way back to the beginning and there are some songs that feel like they\u2019re an overflow of the Americana feel of \u2018Almeria\u2019 and there\u2019s some really amazing kind of acoustic moments with a string quartet that are really stripped down, so I think there really are peaks and valleys on this record, it\u2019s not just one song over and over.<\/p>\n

I found that with \u2018Hurricane\u2019 it was like listening to \u2018Hanging By A Moment\u2019 again, it just felt like an instant Lifehouse song\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah and it\u2019s so funny man because in the past I feel we\u2019ve always shied away from that, we\u2019ve never wanted to be one of those bands that has a hit and just redoes it over and over and over and over again, we\u2019ve tried to really stretch out and explore some different sonic landscapes, but it was nice after fifteen years to just come back to something that felt like home, so it was inspired by that first record.<\/p>\n

Was there a main motivation or inspiration behind the songs on this release, or did you just let it flow with the sixty thousand you wrote?<\/strong>
\n*laughs* It was little of everything I\u2019ve always written songs from my own personal experiences, my relationships, my view or vantage point of the world, but to be honest there\u2019s some songs I\u2019ve written for some friends of mine that have been going through some turmoil when it comes to relationships and I feel as an artist it\u2019s somewhat unhealthy to always create that kind of turbulence in your life to draw inspiration from so I\u2019ve had to learn over the years when I\u2019m in a good, healthy headspace to try to go outside of myself and go get inspired whether by another song, or a movie or a book or somebody else\u2019s life, it could be from a family member, or a friend, or just kind of sitting on 3rd<\/sup> Street in Santa Monica and just watching people go by and making up a narrative about other people\u2019s lives\u2026<\/p>\n

I do have to ask about Jude Cole as he\u2019s a favourite artist of mine\u2026<\/strong>
\nOh no way! That\u2019s great!<\/p>\n

Obviously he\u2019s been associated with you guys for quite some time, but what does he bring to the band musically that still amazes you to this day?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s funny because when I first met Jude I was fifteen, maybe sixteen years old and it was right during the time when he was transitioning from being an artist to wanting to be a manager and producer, and at that point he was just our manager and we had never collaborated until maybe four or five years down the road, and I had no idea how talented he was to be honest, I wasn\u2019t familiar with his music until way later, until I was in my mid-twenties and we started writing songs and we wrote the song \u2018You and Me\u2019 together, and that kind of solidified our song writing relationship, and we\u2019ve been writing ever since. He never ceases to amaze me how amazing he is as a producer and as a song writer as well, it\u2019s such a luxury to have a manager that understands the business but also understands the creative process too.<\/p>\n

Well feel free to tell him there\u2019s a guy in Australia with his entire back catalogue and loves it\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* I will, I\u2019m sure that\u2019s going to mean a lot to him *laughs*<\/p>\n

So, how do you feel as a song writer you\u2019ve grown over the seven Lifehouse albums?<\/strong>
\nI think that my process has kind of evolved and mainly by necessity. I think that starting out on acoustic guitar, you can only write so many songs on an acoustic guitar before you start going to the same places, the same melodies start coming out, so I\u2019ve had to augment my process and I try to sit down at the piano a lot more just because it\u2019s a foreign instrument to me, I feel I can come up with things that kind of jog my creativity and little bit and get outside myself a little bit. On this last record just using this studio as a blank canvas, using modern textured and pro-tools, I\u2019ll go into the studio and mess around with a bass part for an hour, or a rhythm or a drum loop and just start layering texture after texture and then watch the song just tackle shape. So I try and do anything that\u2019s a little left of centre now just since I\u2019ve been doing it so long just to try to come up with something that\u2019s a little bit outside my comfort zone.<\/p>\n

I personally just wanted to say thanks for \u2018Hanging By A Moment\u2019 and \u2018Everything\u2019 to this day still two of my favourite songs\u2026<\/strong>
\nOh thank you, man.<\/p>\n

No worries, and with \u2018No Name Face\u2019 being as big as it was, what do you think it is about songs like that that just stick with people?<\/strong>
\nI think that it had to do a lot with timing\u2026 when I wrote those songs it was a such an amazing energy that we had in the studio, I was only seventeen or eighteen years old at the time, I was in such a raw, vulnerable position in life where I was just experiencing everything at a really heightened level, and music was kind of my therapy and my outlet. So everything I just channelled that was happening to me in my younger days and I just put everything into that album and I think that\u2019s why it resonated with people because it really was raw, it was at a really honest time in my life where I was able to be vulnerable and put myself out there and I think that\u2019s why it still resonates with people.<\/p>\n

Obviously being on Smallville wouldn\u2019t have been a deterrent\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah that definitely helped *laughs*<\/p>\n

What are some of your best memories from when it all took off for you with that first single?<\/strong>
\nI remember three thing, I remember being in San Francisco and playing \u2018Hanging By A Moment\u2019 for one of the first times with the band in a dingy Irish pub, downstairs and there was literally nobody there, and our label representative went outside and started bribing people with free beer to come see our set, he got like twenty people in there. That was like one scene, then literally two weeks later we\u2019re on the side stage of the Pearl Jam tour playing in front of thirty or forty people, and then just like that all of a sudden \u2018Hanging By A Moment\u2019 exploded and we\u2019re opening up for Matchbox Twenty in front of twenty or twenty five thousand people and it all happened in a matter of months, so it was a really surreal time.<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask about Australia because much to the sadness of a lot of people you didn\u2019t make it over in 2013, but do you think we\u2019ll see you back anytime soon?<\/strong>
\nYeah\u2026 You know we\u2019ve been bugging our agent for the last ten years to bring us back to Australia, we had such an amazing time the first time we were over there we played with the Goo Goo Dolls, and Nickelback and I think Billy Idol, and man we had such an amazing time, but I think it\u2019s hard to get a promoter to book us to go down there for a full tour, but we\u2019re really close, I talked to Jude about this a couple of days ago actually and there\u2019s a 90% chance we\u2019re gonna be making it Down Under next year.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve also just announced a European tour, what else can the world expect in the way of seeing Lifehouse live on this record cycle?<\/strong>
\nWell hopefully we can make it to Australia, there\u2019s other pockets we\u2019d like to explore, we\u2019ve never played Brazil before and I think that\u2019s the third amount of facebook followers we have is from Brazil, so there\u2019s certain pockets in the world we\u2019ve never really made it down to play for the fans, so we\u2019re looking to kind of get out of our box and go explore and play some new places.<\/p>\n

Is there anywhere besides Brazil and of course Australia that you really want to get to?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d like to go back to Japan, there are certain spots in Europe I\u2019ve never played, Austria would be amazing, Prague would be amazing, but we\u2019re just looking forward to playing some new places.<\/p>\n

Now with being an independent artist, is it a lot easier for you to get out there without some restraints from labels telling you where you should go?<\/strong>
\nIt is, yeah, especially now with technology it\u2019s a lot easier to connect with your fans one on one through Twitter, Instagram and facebook, so we just have to find out where the pockets of fans are and find a way to make it down there to play for them.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look back to the start, fifteen years ago when \u2018No Name Face\u2019 was released, what do you see as the biggest or most notable change that\u2019s taken place in the band to get you to where you are today?<\/strong>
\nWell we had to go through some really tough growing pains where a couple of members just weren\u2019t really happy, our original bass player and guitar player Rick\u2019s brother quit in 2004, so we made the third album, the one that had \u2018You and Me\u2019 on it with just me and Ricky, the drummer, we just decided to carry on and figure out how to get another bass player at a later date. As soon as Bryce joined the band in 2005 I feel like that really solidified the chemistry between the three of us, we were all on the same page and it felt like we were all sixteen or seventeen year old kids playing music and I still feel that same energy. So I think a lot of it has to do with that chemistry between the three of us.<\/p>\n

Other side of that is I always like to ask someone who has been in the business for a while, what\u2019s the biggest realization you\u2019ve made about the industry as a whole that you didn\u2019t expect to be a part of it when you started the band?<\/strong>
\nWhen our first record came out and just kind of went gang busters and was selling through the roof it seemed like everybody wanted to be your friend, everybody at the label would return your phone calls and as soon as our second record came and just tanked basically *laughs* you really find out who your friends are, everyone just kind of vanished and I think that was a really telling moment, very poignant moment for me, realising that to never take any of this stuff for granted and you really find out who your friends are when you don\u2019t have a song on the radio and those are the ones that you want to bring along for the ride with you, because it seems like when you\u2019re successful there\u2019s a lot of fair weathered friends, so you\u2019ve got to watch out for that.<\/p>\n

I truly don\u2019t understand the thing with the second record and songs like \u2018Spin\u2019 and \u2018Take Me Away\u2019 could\u2019ve and should\u2019ve been huge\u2026<\/strong>
\nThank you, yeah there are some really good tracks on that record, it just didn\u2019t hook up for some reason, but you know what? I feel really grateful that it didn\u2019t in a way because it gave us perspective, if that record was huge who knows where we would\u2019ve ended up? I would\u2019ve, I don\u2019t know, I just feel like it\u2019s a really healthy thing to feel the polarities and not always have a level of success because it builds character you know?<\/p>\n

So, what do you still enjoy about being in Lifehouse?<\/strong>
\nI love the camaraderie that we have as a band, we\u2019re getting to a fun age *laughs* where we really enjoy playing the show, but going out and finding amazing spots to get a great dinner, our drummer Ricky is a huge foodie so he\u2019s on Yelp! all the time trying to find us the best that the city has to offer. So we\u2019re kind of getting into that whole thing, experiencing the city that we\u2019re in at the moment instead of just playing the show and just going back to the tour bus or back to our room. We\u2019re really trying to absorb the culture wherever we\u2019re at.<\/p>\n

Now I have to mention it as I was there in 2002 at Shepherd\u2019s Bush Empire in London when you opened for Bon Jovi\u2026<\/strong>
\nOh no way! Really?! I remember that show like it was yesterday, it was crazy! That was the first club show that Bon Jovi played in years, right?<\/p>\n

Yeah it was… so what was that experience like?<\/strong>
\nIt was surreal, man, so we were all like twenty two years old, and just imagine a twenty two year old kid opening for Bon Jovi *laughs* and getting to hang out with them all backstage, all of us were just completely start struck, it was such a surreal thing. You know, I think we\u2019ve gotten a lot better since then,\u00a0 we were all still really green back then *laughs*.<\/p>\n

Is there a message that you want to get across to people with your music?<\/strong>
\nYou know, yeah\u2026 especially on this record we really want to convey the fact that we first of all are so grateful to be able to play music for a living still, I think that has exceeded all of our expectations you know? I think our main message right now is that we want to preserve that magic spark that we had in the beginning, that love for song writing, that love for honest lyrics and if anything got convoluted along the way or getting lost in a major label setting I feel like we\u2019re 100% back to the purity of just making great music and keeping the business completely on the outskirts and just making that white noise.<\/p>\n

I always find when I speak to people that have moved away from a label you can almost feel a sense of relief, because although it is a job they also do it because they love it and when they can do it themselves they love it even more\u2026<\/strong>
\nOh yeah man, and you start to forget how much you love it when you keep turning music in and a label will say \u2018oh you don\u2019t have a first single\u2019 that can wear you down after a while to where you start to make music almost in a way of just trying to get through the gatekeepers or something, and I feel that\u2019s a self-destructive thing for a band to go through, and to not have to do that anymore is great because I think the fans can really feel when the band\u2019s inspired.<\/p>\n

Well it does come across on the new record, I feel it flows perfectly.<\/strong>
\nOh thank you, man, I appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Lastly, let’s look ahead and predict the future so finish this sentence for me… by the end of 2015, Lifehouse will\u2026<\/strong>
\nCome back to Australia\u2026<\/p>\n

Best answer yet\u2026<\/strong>
\nI hope so, man, trust me, we talk to Jude about this all the time, like man, when are we coming back to Australia?<\/p>\n

Well people were super disappointed you didn\u2019t make it in 2013, so here\u2019s hoping\u2026<\/strong>
\nWell do you know what happened to us, we were all supposed to go, we were all super excited to go and the promoter guy didn\u2019t pay for our flights, we were supposed to go two days earlier and there were no flights *laughs* yeah it was a total mess. That was like our one chance to get there, but you know what? In hindsight, I hope we can come back and actually put on a good show because I don\u2019t think the production there was that great either\u2026<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all I\u2019ve got, so thanks so much for your time, Jason\u2026<\/strong>
\nThank you so much for the interview, hopefully we\u2019ll see you soon. I\u2019ll tell Jude he\u2019s got some fans *laughs*<\/p>\n

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Lifehouse have since announced an Australian \/ NZ tour, check out the tour details below:<\/strong><\/p>\n

October 11, 2015 \u2013 Metro City,\u00a0Perth<\/strong>, Australia<\/p>\n

October 13, 2015 \u2013 The Gov,\u00a0Adelaide<\/strong>, Australia<\/p>\n

October 14, 2015 \u2013 Tivoli,\u00a0Brisbane<\/strong>, Australia<\/p>\n

October 15, 2015 \u2013 Forum Theatre,\u00a0Melbourne<\/strong>, Australia<\/p>\n

October 16, 2015 \u2013 Big Top (Luna Park),\u00a0Sydney<\/strong>, Australia<\/p>\n

October 19, 2015 \u2013 Great Hall,\u00a0Auckland<\/strong>\u00a0Town Hall, New Zealand<\/p>\n

Presented by Metropolis Touring – Get your tickets HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

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Essential Information<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Los Angeles, CA, USA<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>Jason Wade \u2013 Vocals, guitar, Bryce Soderberg \u2013 Bass, \u00a0Ricky Woolstenhulme, Jr. – Drums<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong>\u00a0https:\/\/www.lifehousemusic.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release:<\/strong>\u00a0Out Of The Wasteland \u2013 (26th<\/sup> May – Kobalt Music)<\/p>\n

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