THE LAST GOODNIGHT:
Kurtis John - lead singer, piano
Mike Nadeau - lead guitar
Anton Yurack - guitar, keys, vocals
Ely Rise - Keys, piano, vocals
Leif Christensen - bass
Larone "Skeeter" McMillan - drums
TLG in Aced Magazine Click here to read the article.
Stay Beautiful Video Debut 4 on VH1 Top 20 Countdown!
Thanks for all the support!! The Last Goodnight's new video STAY BEAUTIFUL debut this week at 4 on VH1 Top 20 Countdown!! You can vote as many times as you would like and don't forget to tell all of your friends....Vote today!
They Will Rock You Interview with Anton!
Check it out here!
Don't Stop, Don't Change, Stay Beautiful
Invite your friends to this group and let them know how much you love them just the way they are. This group is inspired by The Last Goodnight's song "Stay Beautiful" Facebook Group
The Last Goodnight are about to Drive You Crazy!
It's time to test your virtual driving skills in the band's new video game "The Last Goodnight and The Poison Kiss". TLG need you to drive the tour van, pick Kurtis and boys up, find their instruments, and make it to the venue in time for the show!! Collect apples for bonus points, but watch out for snakes! Enter in your high score and challenge your friends, and post the game on your Myspace and Facebook pages and more!
The Last Goodnight would like to hear what STAY BEAUTIFUL means to you! Join the Stay Beautiful Buzznet community today!! The guys are looking forward to hearing your thoughts. This is your forum to express yourself, so share your ideas via video, poems, pictures, drawings, blogs…Be creative!
Check out TLG live from The New 95.5 FM Birmingham's Hit Music!
Check it out!
KMHX Radio Event Photos! Check out photos from TLG Exclusive radio event for KMHX in Santa Rosa!
TLG Popeater In-Studio
The Last Goodnight are featured on AOL's PopEater blog with their live in studio performance. Check it out!
TLG "Pictures of You" on The Hills
Head over to The Hills website, and see TLG as a featured artist!
Hello Everyone,
We just wanted to let you know how excited we are to have our debut album, Poison Kiss, available everywhere today, Tuesday, August 28th. We hope you enjoy it and can't wait to see you on the road. And if you haven't already downloaded our single "Pictures of You," it's available on our website at www.thelastgoodnight.net.
Cheers!
The Last Goodnight
Writing and recording Poison Kiss, their major-label debut, The Last Goodnight set the bar almost scarily high: “We wanted to write great songs that no one ever heard before,” states singer Kurtis John. Indeed, while influences and references range from Ella Fitzgerald to Richard Ashcroft to Supertramp to Sly Stone to ELO to U2 to Massive Attack, Poison Kiss is impossible to pigeonhole. “It’s about vibe. We keep the spontaneity and adventure in every aspect,” John explains. “In the studio, we built whole songs using the versatility of drum machines and laid down live drums last. We wanted to let the rhythm of the song define itself through the creation. I love the unexpected crafting of musical and lyrical desperation and vulnerability mixed with upbeat hooks.”
The result is 12 cinematic, singular songs, rife with ‘80s musical references and classic rock influences, but with a modern resonance. Poison Kiss is piano-driven but guitar heavy, and at once rhythmic, lush and soulful. From the first single, “Pictures of You,” a collage of poignant and vivid vignettes, to the strident title track, where the sounds of crackling vinyl meshes with a melancholy but buoyant, layered vibe, Poison Kiss takes an emotional journey. John compares The Last Goodnight to favorite actors and films: “It’s Tom Hanks in Castaway because he’s lost and lonely, somehow stumbling across Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, because the music has a sultry sexiness, then there’s a healthy dose of soul like Pam Grier in Foxy Brown, but touched with a bit of dark strangeness from Clockwork Orange.”
But that’s not how the Connecticut-based band initially sounded. “We’ve grown up a lot since our first indie releases,” explains guitarist Anton Yurack. “On Poison Kiss, there’s a reason and purpose for each song.” When Yurack says the band has “grown up,” that’s literal: The Last Goodnight met in high school. “I was at a house party where I ran into Mike--we both went to Enfield High in Connecticut,” recalls John. “There was only one guitar at the party, and Mike was playing some Metallica—fast, impressive things--and the girls were like ‘WOW!’ When girls asked for Chili Peppers or Cat Stevens, I’d grab the guitar and play that. So Mike and I started a band with a bass player, Leif Christensen, also from our school. Our original drummer went to Enfield too, as did Anton. We were and are totally a band of friends.”
Under The Last Goodnight’s original band name Renata, the lineup earned kudos from the Hartford Advocate, including 2003's Best Original Rock band. Two indie releases under the Renata moniker earned airplay and opening slots for Lifehouse, Avril Lavigne, Howie Day, and more. Between college and jobs at T.G.I. Friday’s, they played in Boston, New York and Connecticut---then piled into a van for more extensive tours. After a 2004 gig at the Whisky in Los Angeles the band slept in their van, woke up at LaBrea and Sunset and got a fortuitous call from A&R exec/producer Jeff Blue. A fruitful period of songwriting ensued, the band writing and demoing hundreds of tunes between L.A. and Connecticut, which led to a deal with Virgin Records/Capitol Music Group in 2006.
With Blue producing, the band set about achieving their sonic goals, using gear in unusual ways: “In ‘Return to Me,’ we ran guitar strings over a couch with reverb and delay,” notes John, whose musical experimentation started early: “My father is blind, but he plays piano and loves blues and jazz. Growing up, we couldn’t go outside and throw a ball like the other kids and fathers, but we had this special musical bond,” John relates. “When I was 7, we’d listen to Dr. John and Billie Holiday and Guns and Roses, and my dad would teach me to hear things out on the piano. Because he can’t see, he doesn’t play in a schooled or traditional way. I still use the odd finger techniques I learned from him. So when we ran guitar strings over a couch with a reverb and delay on “Return to Me,” it didn’t faze me much. Back then he said something that stuck with me. He said, ‘just keep it simple, K, and strike an emotion.’ I think of that to this day when I’m writing.”
The songs on Poison Kiss bear him out. “Pictures of You” is “a collage of life, a landscape of lyrics that paints a picture of ‘what if,’” explains John. “What if a different path was taken, or someone was dealt the wrong set of cards?” With the empathy infusing Poison Kiss, it makes sense that The Last Goodnight isn’t only about the music—“there’s an energy the band has that I want to put to the best possible use,” John explains. “It’s about what we can do to change the world.” It’s not mere lip service: The Last Goodnight plays benefits and works for groups including the Children’s Cancer Foundation, Children’s Diabetes, food shelters and more. The Last Goodnight are integral pieces in the “collage of life” they write about. And they invite everyone from punkers to pop fans to partake of a Poison Kiss, as Yurack concludes, “I think our music has a universal appeal, because it’s emotional and heartfelt and has beauty, all within a modern rock and soul context. It’s about how you allow the music to hit your soul.”
THANK YOU! From a 25 year survivor of HIV/AIDS, thank you as well for supporting ONE and the FIGHT against HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty! Feel free to invite my personal MySpace too: www.myspace.com/onetoughpirate
hey guys, just wanted say what's up and let you guys know that you are all a talented bunch and you're music is very insightful and meaningful. I really really enjoy what you guys do. I was at your show at the House of Blues in San Diego a week ago today. it was my first time at HOB and it was the best time because I got to watch you guys. Keep up the amazingness and please tell me TLG is coming to SD again sometime??
hey guys, what's going on? you guys are amazing, and i can't wait for you to come back to michigan! you need to come back soon. so how's it going with you guys?
