Gloriana Show Growth on Sophomore Album

It's been almost two years since Gloriana's Rachel Reinert, Mike Gossin, Cheyenne Kimball and Tom Gossin released their self-titled debut album. Now that the group has taken home awards from CMT, the AMA and the ACM, along with performances at the White House and overseas on a USO tour, their sophomore release is top of mind. The foursome sat down with The Boot to discuss what inspired their new music (everything from make-out sessions to an infomercial phenomenon) and how they're getting it out to the fans before the official CD release date.

How did your approach to making a record change from the first album?

Rachel: The biggest thing was showing our growth as musicians. We're going on our fourth year together as a band, and three of those years we've spent touring. It will be two years in August since we released the first album, and we've grown together as artists and personally. We had been thinking about this record for a long time. We wanted to write songs from the heart, and we really have sound figured out. There's a lot more of an organic feel to this record.

How far along in the process are you?

Mike: We've been touring like crazy, but we have just finished up recording the CD. Our new single, 'Wanna Take You Home,' is out right now and we shot the video for that.

Rachel: We've recorded about 14 songs so far, and they're all co-writes by at least one of us.

Mike: We wrote some together, some with songwriters.

Tom: It's all different combinations.

Tom, what was the inspiration behind 'Wanna Take You Home'?

Tom: I wrote the song with our producer, Matt Serletic, and it was a reflection on our touring last summer. It was the first time we were playing outdoors and during the daylight. We'd done the Taylor Swift tour prior to that and it was really dark, so you couldn't really see everyone. When you're outside during the day, you can really see everyone's face and reaction. You cruise the crowd, people watch. We noticed that when we played 'Wild at Heart,' our first single, a lot of people would start dancing. We would then pick out the really good dancers in the crowd, or really hot chicks. One time there was a guy with a Shake Weight, he ran right up to the front and danced around with it. [laughs] We cracked up. But I wrote it from my perspective on stage, it was all about watching cute chicks dance, and who doesn't like that?

How did you decide who wrote with whom?

Tom: The way we did our first album was that we got some buzz going about our band, then we were approached by songwriters. Jeffrey Steele was actually one of them, and he said, "I'm a really big fan of you guys and I'd like to get together." We had this cool concept: we picked all of our favorite songwriters and invited them to come to a studio with us for a weekend. We locked ourselves in there, and we'd get into different groups of three and we'd switch throughout the day. In one weekend, we wrote 60 songs for the new album.

This album we didn't do that, but we did, at different times, get together with our favorite songwriters and co-write songs and stuff. Matt, our producer, who is a great songwriter -- he wrote a lot of the Matchbox Twenty stuff with Rob Thomas -- he wrote a lot with us on this one. It was an honor, he's a Grammy-winning producer and songwriter.

What's your favorite song on the new project?

Cheyenne: Mine would be 'Carolina Rose.' We started playing it live and we do it with one guitar, which Tom plays, and four-part harmony. It's a crowd favorite right now. I really want it to be a single.

Tom: It's about the changes we've gone through. We've gone through being normal people and playing music and trying to 'make it,' so to speak, then we've had a couple years of making it. It's about looking back after that and realizing what's really important. It's not the spotlight, it's the relationships you had.

Cheyenne: Even though it's about a girl, I can still relate to it when we're up there singing. Hands-down, it's my favorite song.

Rachel: I love that song, too, but there's a song called 'Sunset Lovin'' that Mike wrote and it's really fun to perform. I really enjoy singing that one. I don't get to sing a lot of uptempo, so this was one of my first and I have a lot of fun with that.

Mike, tell us about the writing of 'Sunset Lovin'.'

Mike: I wrote it with our producer and one of our amazing friends who is a songwriter, Hillary Lindsey. I had this guitar riff that I had written for the first record, but I wrote it late. We had finished up the record already, so the producer who I showed was like, "Save it for the next record." I brought it back to the table and we wrote this song about being stuck in a moment with a significant other, and you're oblivious to everything else that is going on around you. It's fun. Rachel sings it great, and we have a lot of fun with it live.

Tom: The cool thing about writing songs is living through them and then writing about them. One day at one of our concerts, Mike stole a golf cart and went into the crowd.

Cheyenne: He was gone for like six hours.

Mike: I was at this campsite with these really nice people, and there was this guy and this girl making out in this car -- fogging up the windows -- next to us. This particular festival was crazy, there were drunk people running all around. There was this kid who stumbled into the car, and this couple didn't even look, they kept making out. I'm like, "I want to write about that moment." So, I got in a lot of trouble for stealing the golf cart, but it was worth it in the long run because a good song came out of it.

How do you decide on the album's title?

Tom: I don't want it to be a song title, how many times has that been done?

Mike: I think it would be cool if it was a lyric in a song.

Tom: We're still working on it, as you can tell.

You've been filming yourselves performing some of the new music in unlikely surroundings, as part of your 'Music in Random Places' video series. How did that come about?

Cheyenne: We saw Grace Potter do it, and we thought it was really cool. We wanted fans to hear the music before the record comes out, but also to see us play it just us, without the whole band. And they can see us do it in a very weird, quirky place. [laughs]

Mike: It helps because they can focus on the song and strip it down. I'm a fan of a lot of different musicians and bands, and I'd love to see them goofy and strip down a song in a really weird spot. Why not?

How have the people in the random places reacted to you singing?

Rachel: They thought we were totally weird and crazy. It's an element of surprise.