A Rocket To The Moon: Album Review + Interview
Wild & Free, the newest release from A Rocket To The Moon, drops today, March 26th, through Fueled By Ramen and it is the perfect soundtrack to leave winter and head into spring. As the weather starts to warm up, spring training comes to a close in Arizona and Florida, and dreams of summer begin, Wild & Free delivers a collection of thirteen upbeat folky-pop tracks and slower ballads all with a bit of a Nashville vibe.
The album was produced by Mark Bright who has worked with Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood among others. The country roots come through and, combined with sweet lyrics and smooth vocals, the album is the perfect soundtrack to those cool spring nights and warm spring days. Tracks include single “Ever Enough” that only gave a taste of what was to come. I love the album and the new direction the band has taken. Frontman Nick Santino and I chatted about the new album and what it was like to get back in the studio. Check out the interview below.
Arin: What was it like getting back into the studio and recording this album?
Nick: It felt good. I mean we definitely have been… We’ve been touring for a while so we’ve been playing together, but just playing a bunch of old songs. So going into the studio and working out new songs and forgetting about our old setlist for a month was an amazing feeling and kind of a challenge because we were so used to playing the old songs that now playing these new ones was challenging and it challenged us in a bunch of different ways and we’re really excited to relearn everything.
A: Is there a song that stands out as the most fun to record?
N: I think all of them have their own little things about them that made them fun. The last track on the album is a slow piano ballad called ‘Lost and Found,’ and I think that was my favorite song to record vocals on because it’s just all over the place — the dynamics — and it goes up and down, and everything about that song was fun to do.
A: The new music definitely has a bit of a ‘Nashville’ feel to it. Was that because of recording out there, or where did that influence draw from?
N: Yeah, I think all of our influences took part when we did the new record. Being in Nashville definitely helped, but having a Nashville producer, Mark Bright, do the record as well helped; but it was something that we just naturally fell into. It’s just how we play now. Anybody who has seen us play in the last two years [will] have noticed that all the old songs that we play have a new twist to them. They have a little bit more of a southern ‘rocky’ vibe to it, but it’s nothing that we did intentionally. It’s just kind of what we turned the songs into and what we play now and what we listen to, so it’s kind of a mixture of everything why these sound like that.
A: It’s been awhile since you released music and everyone has grown up a bit. Billboard is streaming the album in advance, so what has been the fans reaction thus far?
N: Honestly, we haven’t heard a single bad thing about it which is great. Usually, for some reason, I like to go out and look for the negative comments and hate on those people, but I honestly couldn’t find negative comments anywhere. Everyone really likes it and they respect the fact that we grew up a little bit and we’re playing music from our heart and they really see that and that’s what we wanted them to see here.
A: When are you hoping to get back out on the road and start playing these songs out?
N: We’re releasing dates soon. We’re waiting for the headlining band to announce it before we can, but it’s going to be all summer — all June & July. It’s going to be a really fun tour, and we can’t wait to announce who it’s with and all the cities. It’s going to be awesome.
A: I know you did the album artwork for Wild + Free, so where did that idea come from and what other artwork do you work on for the band?
N: I design like almost all the merch for the band. So while we’re on tour — all the shirts and stuff — I do just about all of those, and the album art we did a photoshoot with our photographer and it was really cool. We went into it just wanting really free looking pictures, not posed, and we went into it with a Where The Wild Things Are / Peter Pan & The Lost Boy’s, that whole being young and wild and running around like little monsters thing; and I think when we saw that one picture of us walking on the top of that hill, it looked amazing and we looked at it right when he took it and we saw it on the back of the camera, and we were like, ‘that’s a really cool picture.’ There was another picture that I thought was going to be the cover and then it ended up [that] this one just kind of worked out too perfectly. I took it and messed around on my computer and started laying stuff out, and it ended up coming out really cool. You don’t really see that around with a lot of bands. A lot of bands don’t put themselves on the cover anymore; and I think that was one thing we said from the start was that we thought it’d be cool to reintroduce our band, but have us on the front cover of the album. It kind of has an Abbey Road thing in a way with the four of us walking like that, but I think it’s cool. I think it kind of introduces the band, like, you see the cover and it’s like, ‘Ok there’s four guys in this band,’ and you can pick [out] who is who by the silhouettes. It’s something cool [and] it’s something very personal, having the actual band on the cover of the album.
Track Listing:
Going Out
First Kiss
Whole Lotta You
Ever Enough
If I’m Gonna Fall In Love
I Do
Another Set Of Wings
Wild & Free
Wherever You Go
Nothing At All
Somebody Out There
You’re My Song
Lost and Found
