Crossfade

Ed Sloan (lead guitar/vocals)
Mitch James (bass/backing vocals)
James Branham (drums)

When it came time to write and record the new Crossfade album, Falling Away, Ed Sloan and Mitch James (the band's Mick & Keith so-to-speak) could feel the heat of their own recent past as competition. Crossfade, the band's first album, struck platinum and generated a string of hit singles, including the radio mainstay "Cold," which made music history as radio's #1 Most Played Rock Song of 2004. The track spent a record-breaking 65 weeks on the Active Rock chart while spending more than 45 weeks on the Modern Rock chart.

"Everyone was talking about the 'sophomore slump,' so we knew to work extra hard to make this album stand above the last one, especially having a song like 'Cold' that was a world record breaker," admits Crossfade co-songwriter/co-producer/bassist/vocalist Mitch James, "but it wasn't really weighing on our heads. We wanted to put out a great album even if the song hadn't done what it had done."

The process of creating Falling Away took several months. Taking a break off from the band's on-going roadwork, Mitch and Ed began writing songs individually and spending some quality time with their respective families and loved ones. "It took us a while to get back in the groove," Mitch admits.

While Ed Sloan had written the bulk of Crossfade's debut album, Falling Away is a true collaboration co-penned equally by Ed and Mitch, with the two of them co-producing virtually all the tracks. "Ed's pro-active. He can sit in the studio and record some guitars and some vocals, do a little drum track and have some of a song already going before we even get in there. We pretty much split this album," says Mitch. "I wrote about half and Ed wrote about half. Most of it was just us sitting in the studio together just doing all-nighters. Ed and I got to the main soul of the song together and once we got to a certain point, we asked James (Branham, the group's drummer) to lay out the beat and that brought a whole new element to it."

The result is the strongest music of Crossfade's career, a new musical sophistication and no-nonsense emotional urgency roaring through the band's seamless patented vocal harmonic blends. "Everything on the album is a story that either Ed or I or both of us have endured," Mitch says sardonically about the new album's inspirations. None of that stuff is made up or even elaborated on. It's just straight truth."

While the songs on Falling Away come from the honest and direct experiences of Ed and Mitch, the emotional contours ring true for a universal set of experiences. "They're all about girls," Mitch confesses, "but if you don't say they're about girls, you can take them however you want. The songs could be about your parents or 'friends' who aren't really your friends. Most of our songs are about 'I'm done with you. I'm heading out. It's time for me to get out of this situation. It's bad for my health, it's bad for my mind.' The way we write--we hope people understand--we write from the heart. It's gotta be true."

The raw honesty that made "Cold" a record-breaking emotional anthem re-emerges on the 11 songs of Falling Away including the powerhouse first single, "Invincible," produced by Ed Sloan, Randy Staub (Metallica, Nickleback) and 2006 Grammy-winning Producer of the Year Steve Lillywhite. According to Mitch, "Invincible" was a song that Crossfade had "written a long time ago, but was too good to just let sit around. So we revamped it to make it a 2006 song."

The roots of Crossfade lie in Columbia, South Carolina, where Ed Sloan met Mitch James when the latter was about 14. Each played in the "most bad-ass band" in their respective high schools and were drawn to each other's musical tastes and talents. "By the time we got to be seniors, his band broke up and so did mine," Mitch remembers. "We're brothers, we've grown into one soul, it's kind of scary. We don't even talk out loud to each other. We know what we like in music and it's usually the same thing. If it's not, we know we can convince each other of it."

Those musical tastes included a shared affinity for the metal sounds of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Faith No More, System Of A Down, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains as well as a common appreciation for the pop song craft of ABBA and the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack. "We're musicians," Mitch confesses. "We're not just guys in a rock band. We're not here to make a huge leap in musical awareness, but we're here to have enough of a different sound that people recognize us and not think that we're any of the other bands out there right now."

Originally released on April 13, 2004, the band's self-titled debut album entered the Billboard 200 best-selling albums chart in July of that year and spent 11 out of 12 weeks (during October - December 2004) as Billboard's #1 Heatseekers album.

Crossfade's debut album was composed, recorded and self-produced in the group's garage studio in Columbia, South Carolina with Randy Staub's post-production work completed at Warehouse Studios in Vancouver. Crossfade reached the upper quarter (#41) of the Billboard 200 bestselling albums chart and was certified platinum, in honor of sales of more than 1,000,000 units, by the RIAA in August 2005.

"Cold," the first single from Crossfade, made music history as radio's #1 Most Played Rock Song of 2004. The track spent a record-breaking 65 weeks on the Active Rock chart while spending a record 46 weeks on the Modern Rock chart. Both "Cold" and its follow-up single, "So Far Away," were Top 10 records at Active Rock Radio. The album kicked out three hit singles -- "Cold," "So Far Away," and "Colors" -- all of which peaked within the Top 5 (at #1, #4 and #5 respectively) of the Billboard Monitor Active Rock chart. "Cold," "So Far Away," and "Colors" also peaked at #3, #4, and #6 (respectively) on Billboard's Mainstream Rock singles chart and at #2, #14, and #18 (respectively) on the Modern Rock chart.

One of the biggest artist development successes of 2004 and 2005, Crossfade performed on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Jimmy Kimmel Live," the "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," and the "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," among other television appearances.

A veritable touring machine, Crossfade has played hundreds of shows since the release of the group's debut album and is slated to hit the road in late August in support of the release of Falling Away.

Last May, Crossfade performed eight shows in 13 days for members of the U.S. military at several bases (including shows in Spain, Italy, Kuwait, Bahrain, Portugal, Turkey and a concert on-board a U.S. navy ship at sea). The Crossfade tour was presented by Navy Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) and Armed Forces Entertainment (AFE).

"We are thrilled that we can show our support for these men and women who put their lives on the line each day. It's because of our nation's military that we can do what we do for a living," said Mitch, speaking on behalf of the band on the eve of the tour. "We hope to continue doing more and more of these shows across the world to show our soldiers how much respect we have for each and every one of them."