The Story and The Song

Product Description This is the debut album from Between The Trees. About the Artist "One tree represents where time and existence begins," ventures lead singer Ryan Kirkland. "The other is the end of everything. Between them is the time we're given on Earth. What matters is what we do with that time." You can't get simpler - or more profound - than that. And it's not only the starting point for what you hear from these five guys. It's also the creed that's driven them to accomplish something extraordinary. To appreciate this, as you spin The Story and The Song, remember this: Just three years ago, as the group was coming together, some of its members hadn't even begun to master their instruments. "Playing well wasn't what drew us to each other," Ryan explains. "We figured that we would become good at what we did with time, and we didn't worry about how long that would take. What was always most important to us was our personal connections to each other. With that, we knew that we'd be able to do whatever we needed to do." The independent release under Manager David McKenna's Bonded Records that landed on three Billboard charts in first week without true distribution ... the subsequent distribution deal with Universal Fontana that allowed the band to sell thousands more records without a major label ... the recent joint venture of Bonded with Universal Motown making BTT the first "upstream" from a Universal indie to a Universal major. None of these witnesses to this band's rise might have believed, at one time, that anyone could climb so far, so quickly. Yet now, knowing Between the Trees, you could say that doing anything less would have been more of a surprise. Their story - and their songs - trace back to the friendship that grew between Ryan and Josh some seven years ago. Ryan had been playing guitar for about a year; Josh announced that he was a drummer. "So," Ryan says, laughing, "someone who was not a great guitarist and someone who lied about playing drums started this band." Josh's brother Jeremy soon wanted to come onboard; though he'd never played bass, he picked up the basics from Ryan. They worked as a trio for a while, morphed into an acoustic act, and then ran into Wes Anderson; he was recruited to play keyboards, though his previous experience was his high school drumcore. Maybe seven months later, willing to try anyth