Nine DaysArticle

i wrote this article about the band for a newspaper and i would like to get some feedback from nine days fans before it gets published. please excuse the grammar as its a rough draft.

For the average music fan the Long Island band Nine Days will probably be dismissed as a mere one hit wonder. However, for those of us who follow the band and their story, the labeling of the band as a simple ?one-hit wonder? is nothing more than a grave injustice to an extremely talented group of musicians and a great bunch of guys. If the band is remembered for anything, is should not only be for their single ?Absolutely (Story of a Girl),? but also for their love of music and their continued drive to keep producing top quality music, long after their time in the limelight has passed.
Nine Days was born in Long Island in 1994, when songwriters John Hampson and Brian Desveaux decided to join forces together and begin writing songs. Soon after Hamson and Desveaux came together, the two were joined by bassist Nick Dimichino, drummer Vincent Tattanelli and keyboardist Jeremy Dean and the band began their journey. So where did the name ?Nine Days? come from, it?s really not that much of a story. The band settled on the name Nine Days in order to commemorate the time they spent recording their first studio album in 1995 titled Something to Listen To. The freshman effort from the band was filled with many catchy 90?s alternative tracks such as ?Things We Said,? ?7 Windsor Ct,? and the bands first ever written and produced track ?Lost You.? A year after the bands first studio release, they self produced and released their second album titled Monday Songs, named after their weekly shows at a local Long Island club. The band finally caught the eyes of the major labels upon the release of their third self produced album fittingly title Three, and their winning of local radio stations WBAB's Home-grown Talent Search and WLIR's Best Unsigned band competition. "The band decided right in the beginning we weren't gonna wait around for anyone to do anything for us," Desveaux said. "We were just going to do our own thing and make it happen. That's why we put out our own records. Finally, at the end of 1999 the band reached a milestone and signed onto Sony?s Epic 550 Records.
In 2000, six years after the band came together in Long Island, they finally achieved their long sought after goal and released their major label debut titled The Madding Crowd. The band derived the name of the album from Thomas Hardy?s novel Far From the Madding Crowd. Much to the surprise of front man John Hampson, the album produced the #1 single Absolutely (Story of a Girl) and immediately spring boarded the band into the mainstream spotlight. ?Absolutely? quickly climbed the modern rock charts and propelled The Madding Crowd to gold status. Hampson and his bandmmates could not have been more surprised by the success of their #1 single. Believe it or not, it was a fight with his girlfriend that inspired Hampson to write the band?s first hit. "We were aggravating each other, and she walked away to the other side of the club," he said during a tour stop in Los Angeles. "And I was literally thinking to myself, gritting my teeth, 'God, she drives me nuts.' And as I was thinking that, I was looking at her across the room and saw her laugh about something. My anger went away and I thought, 'She totally drives me crazy, but when I see her smiling and I see her happy, that's when I'm in love.' "I went over and picked up my guitar, and literally 15 minutes later the song was done. Obviously, I worked more on the lyrics later, but the basic structure and the melodies kind of came right out." In an interview with VH1.com in 2000, Hampson confessed that ?(While) I always thought it was a good song, it never really occurred to me that it would do so well on a top 40-type chart. I thought it would do good at alternative rock radio or whatever. So to look at the charts and see Britney Spears and Sisq? and Eminem ? and then Nine Days ? it's kind of like, 'What in the world?? Buoyed by the success of ?Absolutely,? the band released another single off their major label debut titled ?If I Am,? which also worked its way onto Billboard?s modern rock chart.
In order to promote their gold album The Madding Crowd, the band spent most of 2000 and early 2001 on tour, and the future of Nine Days never seemed to be brighter. With the conclusion of ?The Madding Crowd? tour, the band went back to the studio to work on their sophomore release, So Happily Unsatisfied. So Happily Unsatisfied contained a more aggressive and fuller rock sound than The Madding Crowd but the trademark Nine Days hooks and melodies were definitely present throughout. So Happily Unsatisfied contains many tracks that could have easily been follow up hits to the infamous ?Absolutely,? whether it be the scheduled first single off the album ?Good Friend,? ?Favorite Song,? or the beautifully written and recorded ?Ocean? and ?Marvelous.? Epic scheduled So Happily Unsatisfied for a summer 2002 release, but later pushed back the release date to autumn 2002 in order to prevent the album from being ?lost in the crowd,? with other albums scheduled for a similar release date. However, once autumn 2002 rolled around, Nine Days was notified that So Happily Unsatisfied would not be released and that the band would no longer have a contract with Epic Records. Perhaps the absence of a ready-made successor to "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)" on the album ultimately hurt the band in the eyes of record company bosses hungry for ready-made hits. Front man John Hampson didn't see a split with the label coming. "When we were working on So Happily Unsatisfied, no-one asked us about a new "Absolutely...", he says emphatically. "They [Epic] encouraged us to go for a more rock sound, and that's what we wanted to do too. It is much more guitar heavy and I think it's a great record. Maybe we'd still be making albums for Epic if we'd written a more pop record, but who knows?" To make matters worse for the band, Epic refused to allow Nine Days to acquire the rights to So Happily Unsatisfied and was committed to keeping the album from ever reaching the light of day. And so it was, the album that the band felt could have been their defining work was covered in red tape and property of Epic Records and the band now found themselves at a crossroads. Even with all the controversy surrounding how Epic dealt with the band Hampson says he holds no grudges. "I still have many friends there and I don't take it personally, I just wish they would have let us go before we recorded So Happily Unsatisfied, at least then we would have had a chance to go somewhere else. It's in limbo now, and the major label world is so screwed that it works against us to have a record done and shelved." Hampson and the band had never been more unsure about their future. "We didn't know what to expect," Hampson recalls. "We were thrilled to have any success after years of struggling and Epic did a good job with us but they just didn't believe in the band at the top level. With the album the band now refers to as ?the masterpiece? unable to be released and the band without the backing of a major label, it looked as the curtain had now closed on Nine Days.
In 2003, however, Nine Days rose from the ashes and released their sixth studio album aptly title Flying the Corporate Jet on their own record label. Flying the Corporate Jet produced the internet hit ?The Moment? and is filled with many more quality tracks such as ?Something Has Gone Wrong,? ?29 Year Old Girls,? and ?Reality TV.? ?29 Years Old Girls,? also saw success over the internet and even topped out on many alternative websites rock charts, such as AlternativeAddicition.com?s chart. The latter, takes a wry look at what passes for entertainment these days, it shows Desveaux at his best and reveals the only reference to Nine Day's history with former label Sony: "So it was fun / We had this great little song / It went to number one / And then tomorrow . . . gone / And all we could see when we came up for air / Was just a label full of monkeys trying to spike our hair." Flying the Corporate Jet once again solidifies the fact that Nine Days is certainly no one hit wonder. For, as Ink 19?s Andrew Ellis puts in, ?One-hit wonders? Not at all. One-hit wonders are those who briefly play the corporate game and are never heard from again, but talent like Hampson's and Desveaux's is truly too good to be stifled.?
After the release of Flying the Corporate Jet, the band took a break. Hampson and Desveaux went on two release solo albums, however, the band still continued to play occasional shows. In late 2006, however, Nine Days fans were given some wonderful news. The band had finally retained the rights to the long lost masterpiece So Happily Unsatisfied, and had decided to reunite and produce their seventh studio album. Nine Days released their first album in over 3 and a half years in 2007, titled Slow Motion Life (Part One), a six song EP. Slow Motion Life (Part One), once again contained many quality tracks such as a rerecorded version of Hampson?s solo hit ?Brand New Me,? ?A Girl In California,? ?Worth Fighting For,? and the AlternativeAddiction.com #1 single ?Suddenly (A Brown Eyed Girl).? The band complemented the release of Slow Motion Life (Part One) with a summer 2007 tour, which included stops all over the country. As of right now, the band currently plans to relase Slow Motion Life (Part Two) sometime this fall and also plans to go out on tour for the 2008 summer.
While Nine Days has seen its time in the limelight come and go, they have managed to weather the test of time and continue to produce top quality music. If one thing can be learned from examining the story of this band, it is as their second single ?If I Am? states, ?you should never let the sun set on tomorrow, before the sun rises today.? This little band from Long Island truly demonstrates everything that music should be about: passion, persistence, and following your dreams. To many they may simply be one-hit wonders, but to those of us that follow their story, they are a remarkable and talented group of musicians.



<img src=http://www.onlineseats.com/upload/concerts/746_con_ninedayscol.jpg>

If I Am Another Waste Of Everything You Dreamed Of I Will Let You Down

pretty good, i like it!!!

I dig the ending where you referenced the lyrics from "If I Am"


...funny thing too, I just finished watching That Thing You Do!


oh, there IS one note, some sources would be good... like the thing about the band finally retaining the rigths to SHU... I'm not sure that they ever did, because the band never printed/sold them, but I could be wrong... on another note, there are a few official-epic-produced-advanced-demo-copies of SHU floating around...


by the way... I'm glad to not have noticed any misspelling of Desveaux, BUT there is a "Hamson" in the article somewhere... go find it!