By Shari WeissPLAY Writer
Michelle Nolan wants to make one thing clear: Straylight Run is not a Victory Records band.
“There’s a lot of connotations that come with that label,” says the 26-year-old guitarist and pianist from Long Island. “People hear Victory Records and think a certain type of music and I don’t necessarily think that’s us.”
Straylight Run did release two records on that label – 2004’s self-titled full-length album and last year’s “Prepare to Be Wrong” EP.
When Nolan’s brother, John, the band’s singer, and close friend Shaun Cooper, the band’s bassist, left the highly-successful band Taking Back Sunday, both were still under contract with Victory. The label allowed the two to fulfill their commitment through Straylight Run. Now the band is searching for a new label and will release a new album in the spring.
“People assume it’s Taking Back Sunday music and it’s not. (The new CD) is much more how we want to come across,” Nolan says.
The album, tentatively titled The Miracle That Never Came, won’t have a specific release date until a label is chosen. But, Nolan says, nothing was going to stop them from making a new album. The band, which also includes Will Noon, the band’s drummer, paid out-of-pocket to record, mix and produce the album.
“We’re pretty much broke now,” she says. “(But) when we’re looking for a label, we have a finished product they can hear. They’ll know exactly what they’re getting.”
And what they’re getting, Nolan says, will be a variety of instruments – look for the addition of horns and accordions on some songs – and a more cohesive sound.
“On the first record, we had been a band for such a short amount of time and I had only been playing music for a short time,” Nolan says.
Straylight Run chose to release an EP, not only to complete fulfilling contractual obligations with Victory, but also to make a slow progression in sound.
“It was a good way to transition from the first record to (this) new one without people freaking out (because) it’s so different,” she says. “It prepared people for what’s coming.”
Nolan shares writing duties with her brother, but says whoever is singing on the specific track is usually the one who wrote it. Several songs on the new album tackle her thoughts on being a woman in a man’s world. Nolan says she has a lot of experience to draw on, especially since she’s usually the only female on tour with the band.
“Some people might think that’s the coolest thing,” she says, “but for me it’s overwhelming.”
Straylight Run is currently touring small venues and clubs, with some larger exceptions. The band learned a lot from their mismatched tour with Simple Plan in 2005, Nolan says.
“I think it was bad for everyone involved,” she says. “We thought playing in front of a crowd that never heard us before was a good idea. In the future, we’ll give it more thought.”
Nolan says she realizes how key touring is and admits the band isn’t extremely well-known nationally.
“We need to figure out how to market ourselves to more than just the Alternative Press audience. They’ve been great to us,” Nolan says. “But we’d like to expand beyond this one scene.”
Medill sophomore Shari Weiss is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].