SAOSIN: 20 Years of Self-Titled

Saosin formed in early 2003, with Beau Burchell and Justin Shekoski on guitar and Anthony Green on vocals. Within a few months, bassist Chris Sorenson and drummer Alex Rodriguez were added to the line up. In February 2004, Anthony decided to leave the band due to personal reasons. The band started working with Cove Reber on vocals as of June 2004. Southern California quintet Saosin are one of the fastest-growing headliners in rock - earning mainstage slots on the Vans Warped Tour, selling out clubs in a flash, going out with heavyweights like AFI, Avenged Sevenfold, My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday and garnering an ocean of fans who've downloaded their songs from MySpace over five million times - all before they've released a full-length album.

 

It's been three years since word of the band's full-length debut first surfaced, and in that time a lot has changed within the music scene from which they originally emerged and within the band itself.

 

But the band's sound and its ambition grew tremendously during the recording of their 12-song debut, an album that exceeds even the wildest of expectations. From the dueling guitar crunch of opener "It's Far Better to Learn" to the nosebleed anthemic heights of lead single "Voices," the livewire maelstrom of "Follow and Feel" and epic heartstring-puller "You're Not Alone," Saosin have created the kind of debut album that announces something indisputably new under rock's sun.

 

The initial stages of the band's debut date back to late 2003 when founding guitarists Burchell and Shekoski and original frontman Anthony Green began playing out, recorded a quick EP, Translating the Name, and embarked on a U.S. tour during which time Green exited the band. To the group's surprise Translating the Name garnered the band a massive fanbase both online and at their live shows, which grew organically, and quickly.

 

In the winter of 2005 the revamped Saosin lineup with Sorenson, Rodriguez and new frontman Reber signed to Capitol, released a self-titled EP of demos and live tracks, and began pre-production on their long-awaited full-length debut. As the band recorded various versions of their new songs - both at their home studios and on a mobile recording unit that they set up on their tour bus - the burden of heavy expectations eventually gave way to genuine excitement.

 

In turn, the album that Saosin began recording with producer Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, Head Automatica) this past January - nearly a full year after they began properly demoing its songs - would live up to the band's great expectations, and then some. More importantly, though, it proves that in a world of overnight success at least one group is devoted enough to write songs that are built to last.