Absence

About the Artist Already hailed as one of Pastes "4 To Watch," Paper Route has earned acclaim for their ingenious electronica-based rock and intensely intimate lyricism. The Nashville-based bands Universal Motown debut, "ABSENCE," is an ambitious and impassioned collection of widescreen modern music, rich with shimmering textures and intricately crafted sonics. Songs like "Carousel" and the elegiac "Are We All Forgotten" are haunting and emotional, alighting upon such common themes as love and loss, rebirth and redemption. Throughout the album, Paper Route express resilience in the face of adversity, ultimately achieving transcendence though honesty and a sense of real circumstance. The work of a rare band thats not afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves, "ABSENCE" is both acutely personal and altogether universal. "Were very sentimental, emotional, hopelessly romantic guys," says JT Daly (vocals, keyboards, samples), "and thats not cool. But weve found that when you are just brutally honest, people connect with that. A lot of things that people are running away from, weve always found ourselves gravitating towards." "The most honest and real songs come from times that arent necessarily the best," says Chad Howat (programming, piano, keyboards, bass). "So over the course of making this record, weve gone through failed relationships, sicknesses and deaths among our friends and families. But thats life, and hopefully it will resonate with other people." The founding members of the band hail from churchgoing families in the American Heartland. Daly and Andy Smith (vocals, guitars, harmonica) met through a family connection and began writing songs together. They converged with Howat in college and formed their first band. The band relocated to Nashville after a year, but soon called it a day. "The band never quite got off the ground," says Smith. "But we felt there was a chemistry between us that wed later find hadnt fully been realized." The three musicians went their separate ways, but maintained their tight knit friendship. Smith pursued a career in social work, while Daly continued to explore visual arts and film. For his part, Howat bought a laptop and taught himself to record and program. Plagued by insomnia, he worked long into the night, creating experimental music inspired by such artists as Air and Boards of Canada. "Chad started coming up with really interesting stuff," says Smith, "this smart, emotional, electronic pop music. The more that he got into it, the more it felt like a new direction. It was as accessible as possible, yet still flooded with as much integrity as we could muster. It just seemed like an exciting thing." "It all came together as soon as I started writing songs on the computer," Howat says. "It felt like I had finally found my voice." He soon invited Smith and Daly to contribute vocals to the recordings and the trio of friends found themselves abuzz with creative energy. "We all kind of got the bug again once we got going," says Howat. "This is our drug," Daly says. "We cant quit coming back to this. We always just circle back to making music." By mid-2006, they decided to grow their project - now dubbed Paper Route, conjuring up innocent images of their youth - into something with wider appeal. They released a self-titled EP and began to ponder how to bring their sound to the stage. The problem was resolved with the inclusion of drummer Gavin McDonald. Though Paper Route continued to build music around samplers and other programs, the addition of a live drummer gave the fledging band a richer, more human sound, as did a musical arsenal incorporating glockenspiel, accordion, melodica, piano, and guitars. "I knew it would take a lot of work to incorporate live drumming into the bands sound," McDonald says. "But after our first few shows, it was obvious that it was going to work and also open up new possibilities creatively." "The three of us had learned to operate as one," s