Laylights Looks Into the Future

Sometimes it's hard to look back on your past. With a mixture of shame, sadness and nostalgia, you leaf through your baby pictures, grade-school love letters, high-school yearbook, wedding album and resumé, trying to find the signposts and forks in the road that brought you to your current situation.

For a young band like Laylights, this process can be even more daunting: There were just so many witnesses to each of those naked baby photos. Everyone who bought that first EP knows what the band sounded like and noted the obvious influences. The act may have winced at its own perceived musical missteps and lyrical cliches. Perhaps that's why the members, on the verge of releasing their second EP, are reluctant to talk about the past.

"We're in a much different space than we were," explains guitarist Ian McCumber. "That first EP is a young band, still learning how to play together. We just think we're in a much better place."

Lead singer and guitarist Tyler Hayden agrees. "We are so excited about our future."

Still, it's where you've been that makes you who you are, and in that respect, Laylights is no different. The act began with drummer Martin Baker and two other musicians. At the time, Hayden was playing his original songs on an acoustic guitar at open-mike nights around town. A rabid and omnivorous music lover and home-recording enthusiast, the young songwriter knew he wanted to play with others and eventually found Baker, whose original bassist soon left to focus on his guitar. Chris Martucci auditioned and was quickly welcomed as his replacement. Then, as Baker, Hayden and Martucci began to develop the sound that would become Laylights, the original guitarist decided to move on as well, and the group began the long, painful process of auditioning guitarists.

"They were trying out tons of guys," recalls McCumber, who felt a bit intimidated at first.

"Martin was like, 'This is the one! I love his name! It sounds so British!'" Hayden recounts. "And then he came in and we couldn't hear him at all."

"I was mostly just listening, but they kept asking me back," McCumber notes with a laugh. "Every time I'd show up, I'd bring all my stuff, and then after rehearsal, I'd pack it all up again — until one day, Tyler told me I could leave it."

Hayden likens the situation to the beginning of a romantic relationship. "It's like when you're dating a girl and you're on your fifth date, and you're really into her, and she says, 'So what is this? What are we?'" Once the quartet committed to each other, Laylights was out of the gate. "We played our first show a month after we had that little talk," says Hayden.

Just a few months later, the band began recording its 2006 debut EP with Bryan Feuchtinger at Uneven Studios. The self-titled, five-song collection was filled with lush atmospherics, dense guitar layers, angelic vocals and memorable melodies. Though the outfit understandably feels a little disconnected from it after so much time has passed, the release turned heads and pricked up ears, both at home and around the country. By the middle of 2007, Laylights had created a national buzz. An appearance at Summerfest in Milwaukee was an important turning point.

"That was our first experience with really feeling our effect," explains Hayden. "We got out of the van, and there were people saying our names. Here were people who just heard our music, connected to it and were interested in what we're doing."

"I went outside to this loading dock to smoke a cigarette," Martucci recalls. "I kept hearing someone yelling, 'Chris! Chris!' I looked down, and it's some random kid from Kentucky, holding our CD. He asked, 'Where's Ian?' And I was like, 'How do you know Ian?'" His bandmates laugh. "I'm still surprised when someone in town that I don't personally know knows about Laylights," the bassist continues, "but when someone in Milwaukee knows me and probably knows what I like to eat for dinner, it's a little creepy."

"It definitely opened up our eyes," Hayden admits. "When we got back, we decided to focus on our new release."

The forthcoming EP, Auricle, builds on the group's richly textured, Brit-pop-influenced sound, but the growth, development and relationships Laylights has experienced while touring, writing and recording together shine through the gauzy atmosphere. With just six songs lasting less than thirty minutes, the record surveys surprising emotional and musical depth and breadth.

The opener, "Tigers," is carried by McCumber and Hayden's familiar ringing guitar lines, grounded and driven by Baker's busily beautiful drumming and Martucci's austere bass work. "Get Me" swaggers with garage-rock cockiness that is offset by vulnerable, a cappella vocal breaks. And the EP's closer, "Between the Lines," is a poignant, piano-driven ballad that crescendos with crushing walls of guitar and an emotional catharsis that brings the record to a satisfying end.

From the sounds of it, the recording process itself was just as fulfilling.

"I had moments in the studio when I just felt very satisfied with what we're doing and the choices we're making," muses McCumber. "We were impressing each other, and it just felt right and good."