Ingram Hill W/ Sam Thacker And Sean McConnell

Come out and enjoy an amazing night of music from Ingram Hill, Sam Thacker and Sean McConnell!
Event Schedule
Sean McConnell
9:00 PM
Sam Thacker
9:45 PM
Ingram Hill
10:30 PM
Sean McConnell | 9:00 PM
Does anyone really read long bios? I don't. Here are a few facts you might want to know about me (aka, the important things):
I write songs and perform them for a living and some people seem to dig it (I think that's really cool)
I live, work, and love in Nashville Tennessee
My favorite Ninja Turtle is Donnatello (I bet yours is Michelangelo)
I miss my mom cooking me fish sticks
I write for Warner Chappell Publishing
I'm from a big family and I want a big family
I have an uncanny knack for finding unbelievably awesome T-shirts at the thrift store (I believe it is my spiritual gift)
I always say that I sound like If David Wilcox and Patty Griffin went on a double date with Jonny Lang and Shawn Colvin
Every single time I go to Taco Bell I buy two Cheesy Gordita Crunches and a grilled stuffed Burrito
When I write songs, I like to focus on the fact that we are all the same and we are all just searching for answers and trying to make sense of everything. It's about exploring life and celebrating truth when you find it
My sister broke my Sega Genesis when we were kids by spilling her cranberry juice on it. I don't think it actually smoked when it happened but I like to say that it did.
The Long Version (if you're in to that sort of thing)
Sean McConnell Bio
Sean McConnell has been performing on stage ever since he can remember. He was born into a family of full-time musicians, which inspired Sean to travel down the musical road. Growing up in the coffee houses of the Boston folk scene, Sean watched his parents playing songs written by Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, David Wilcox, Shawn Colvin, Harry Chapin, CSNY, James Taylor and others of the like. Unknown to himself or his parents, Sean was soaking it all in and locking it away somewhere inside.
During Sean's middle school years, the McConnell family left Massachusetts to move to Atlanta, Georgia. For Sean and his three siblings, this move was less than invited. Feeling alone in a new city, Sean quickly found a way to deal with the sadness of leaving friends and family behind. He snuck into his parents' room, found his dad's guitar hidden under the bed, and started to write songs. He took the few chords that his father had taught him and went to work. Surprisingly, it came naturally; it just fell out of his mouth and on to the page. Eventually, with the support of his family, he wrote more and more songs and started playing them out at coffee houses and school functions. By the time he left for college, he had two independent records and a respectable buzz around the Atlanta area.
After high school, Sean moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee to study music business at Middle Tennessee State University. During his sophomore year, Sean started working with Quantum Talent, a college booking agency that works with NACA (National Association of Campus Activities.) In 2006, between studying and playing all over the United States, Sean signed a publishing deal in nearby Nashville with Warner/Chappell Music. In his first two years of the deal, artists such as Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Phil Stacey (American Idol) and many others had recorded his songs.
In 2008, Sean teamed up with booking agent, Chad Kudelka and CEK Music in Austin, TX. Since then, Sean has split his time between writing songs and touring.
The Heart Of My Music (In his own words) "For me it's all about the SONG. I remember watching my father sitting at our dining room table for hours and hours with his pencil and pad crafting his songs; spending the time to find the perfect word, the perfect chord, the perfect melody. That really made an impression on me. When I write a song it really is a kind of science, an operation; but it isn't mathematical or calculated, it is alive and breathing and moving. At the risk of sounding like a hippie on a soapbox, music is still powerful and holy and sacred to me. You can turn it into a product and a business, but you can't start it that way. To me the genesis of a song has to be honest and unassuming. I truly believe that God hands me these gifts and it is my job to translate them as honestly as I can. You have to let a song be what it is. We can't lose that. When I write songs, I like to focus on the fact that we are all the same and we are all just searching for answers and trying to make sense of everything. It's about exploring life and celebrating truth when you find it."
Sam Thacker | 9:45 PM
Sam Thacker's musical career began under refreshingly unassuming circumstances. As a college freshman in Atlanta he began playing songs by his favorite artists around campus and at bars in the surrounding areas. "I think I got paid something like $25 and a pitcher of PBR," Thacker recalls of his first gig. After just a few weeks of playing other people's songs, Sam decided to try his hand at writing his own material and soon began recording what would eventually become his debut album, Above the Underneath .
Thacker released Above the Underneath independently in April of 2005. Sam's powerful and dynamic vocals come across as strikingly honest on the twelve-song album and gracefully compliment his rhythmic guitar grooves and infectious melodies. As Above the Underneath began to spread throughout the Atlanta area and across the southeast, Sam quickly began making fans out of the most discerning listeners and believers out of the most jaded critics. "Thacker writes with the maturity of a seasoned songwriter and has an undeniable knack for weaving beautiful melodies," writes Krissie Callahan of Just Another Song, as she proclaims the album: "simply one of the best undiscovered gems of 2005."
The record also garnered attention from program directors at radio stations in Atlanta and beyond. After Serenade, the album's opening track, received spins in Atlanta as well as on XM Radio, Thacker became one of a very small number of independent artists to be officially added to the rotation of a Top 40 station. Brian O'Conner, Program and Music Director for Hot 104.9-FM in Tallahassee, was the first to add the song and recalls seeing "the phones light up on the record!"
Despite the airplay, Thacker is, at his core, a live performer. In July of 2005 he joined forces with Metro Talent Group in Atlanta and began touring tirelessly. From Colorado to Virginia, Texas to Chicago, Sam began sharing stages with (and often stealing them from) artists like Gavin DeGraw, Marc Broussard, David Ryan Harris, Edwin McCain, and the Doobie Brothers. "Sam is just one of those guys who knows how to connect to his audience - it pays dividends for him on stage," says O'Conner. Indeed, it is through his charismatic live shows that Thacker really draws people in. The strikingly honest connection is very real and lasts long after Thacker walks off of the stage. Through shows that consistently move audience members, Sam has built a loyal grassroots following of fans who often go to great lengths to fill rooms wherever he is playing. "We played a show in Atlanta," Thacker remembers, "and afterwards I was talking to a lady who told me she had flown in from Arizona for the show. My jaw nearly hit the floor."
In January of 2007, twenty-five hundred fans will join Sam as he performs alongside Better Than Ezra, Collective Soul, Sister Hazel and others on the already sold out Rock Boat, a four day cruise dubbed, "The worlds greatest floating music festival."
Throughout everything, Thacker continues to draw on his experiences creatively. Using each day as an opportunity to hone his craft as a writer, Sam is enjoying the most prolific period of his career to date. A wealth of new songs like, Deep End, Not the Only One, and Hello, Hello showcase his tremendous growth as a songwriter and an artist. It is a development that has been spurred by recent collaborations with artists such as Emerson Hart (of Tonic) and Charlie Mars.
Today is seems as if Sam's days of bumming around a college campus with his acoustic guitar are just distant memories. But the spirit behind his music remains undeniably the same. "No matter what happens I'm always going to be a writer, always going to be playing for someone, somewhere," he says. So keep your eyes and ears open. At this rate, you may not have to look very far to find him.
Ingram Hill | 10:30 PM
After moving to California to record the new album, Ingram Hill singer/guitarist Justin Moore noticed something surprising: L.A. gets awfully chilly once the sun goes down. Turns out SoCal's endless coconut-scented summer isn't everything the mythmakers would have you believe. For Ingram Hill, musical myth busting is just part of the job description. In their new Hollywood Records CD, "Cold in California," the band masterfully wields rock ‘n' roll fundamentals to turn conventional pop wisdom upside down.
"That title is as figurative as it is literal," says Moore from his Memphis home. "It's about the surprises of everything that goes into making a record for a major label: what you think will happen and what actually happens." Indeed, "Cold in California" tackles all manner of subjects, many related to the inconsistencies of love and romance. With producer Oliver Leiber at the helm, the CD boasts 11 new songs, all invoking a Southern rock vibe that informs but does not define them.
A lot of this was done collectively," adds Moore. "And a lot was co-written with outside writers. It was nice to get those fresh ideas." Teaming up with the band were writers like Whisky Town's Mike Daly and Better than Ezra's Kevin Griffin. Though fans of Ingram Hill's 2004 CD, "June's Picture Show," will instantly recognize the band's signature sound, this time the members took a "less is more" route. "The last record we did on Pro Tools," recalls Moore. "We'd fix everything, but in doing that you take the human element out of it. We made a conscious effort to avoid that as much as possible this time, and make it feel like four guys that went in there and played.
With the opening track "I Hear Goodnight," Ingram Hill establishes the parameters at the outset: stripped down guitar-centric arrangements, engaging melodies and Moore's supremely confident vocals front and center. Rockers like "Why Don't You," "Million Miles Away" and "Something to Cry To" comprise a musical fight club, with Moore and Bogard's stinging twin guitars battling it out. "Four Letter Word" employs the same wall of sound, but with the band's wry wit as added leavening (by the way, the song's four-letter word is "Mary," a bad-ass ex-girlfriend).
Their sense of humor also surfaces in the frenetic "Finish What We Started" and "Impossible," a droll meditation on love and money. The band brings it downtempo on ballads like "What You Want" and the stunningly intimate "Troubled Mercy," perhaps the album's most complex song. The CD ends with the title track, which sums up the band's nomadic life on the road and their longing to return home to Tennessee.
Of course that move to L.A. was only temporary. The members of Ingram Hill are true blue Tennesseans, native to the bluffs and bottoms of Memphis. Moore and Bogard had known each other since childhood, sharing musical interests as diverse as Elton John and Radiohead. Of course, growing up in the birthplace of the blues didn't hurt either. Ingram Hill first took shape in 2000 when Moore and Bogard enlisted drummer Matt Chambless, Moore's college roommate, to form a band.
Right out of the gate, they toured non-stop, averaging 200 shows a year. Their strategy: play great and have a good time doing it. "One of the biggest things in our show is we have fun," says Moore. "When you're out supporting other bands the audience has no idea who you are, but if they see you having fun, then suddenly its fun for them. We don't take ourselves too seriously. Life isn't that bad."
In time life got even better as they graduated from small clubs to larger venues, opening for artists like Maroon 5 and Lisa Marie Presley, and eventually headlining their own shows. Fans responded to the band's brash hold on the basics. "If there was one conscious decision we made," says Moore, "it was just be a rock ‘n' roll band, no matter what happens with the trends. People will always like it." In 2002 Ingram Hill recorded their debut indie EP, "Until Now," which sold more than 10,000 copies. Ever the hometown favorites, the band saw their EP reach #5 on the Memphis retail charts.
Having honed their writing and playing chops, Ingram Hill then entered the studio with producer Rick Beato (Shinedown, Trey Anastasio) to record a debut full-length album, "June's Picture Show." They had planned to support the CD with more regional touring, but a month after release, Hollywood Records found them, loved them and signed them, re-releasing the record. This pumped steroids into the promotional effort, with the band reaching new cities and new fans. The album drew rave reviews and raised Ingram Hill's profile far beyond its southern base. "Your job is to make people cheer for you," reflects Moore. "If you're an accountant, and you turn in your report, the office doesn't stop and applaud for you. But that instant gratification of the crowd is what you become comfortable with as a band."
Once "Cold in California" ships, things begin to heat up for Ingram Hill with a massive national tour on tap through the rest of 2007 and into next year. And though Moore and his brothers in arms are satisfied with their efforts on the new CD, they don't expect audiences to merely take their word for it. Better to the let the music do the talking. "We're still a good old fashioned rock ‘n' roll band," says Moore. "If you hadn't heard us before, you should hear us now."
Music :: Country / Singer/Songwriter / Bluegrass/Old-Time / Alt. Country / Alt. Rock / Pop / Rock / Americana / Acoustic / Southern Rock