RoseLine

When Colin was 19 years old and freshly dropped out of college, his friend played him two albums that forever changed his life – Whiskeytown’s "Stranger's Almanac" and Lucinda Williams’ "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road". Until this point Colin had entirely passed over "country" music as stupid and for rednecks but there was something about those records in which he really identified with and found so much beauty in. The spaciousness, the phrasing, the economy of words, the tempo and the sadness all resonated deep within Colin. Those records led him to so much more of the music that eventually would inspire The Roseline. Eventually Colin moved to Santa Fe, NM to go to art school and was again bored with his studies when he decided to buy a $100 guitar for his 21st birthday. The next door neighbor taught Colin some chords, his fingers got calloused and within the next year he had a notebook full of 70 songs. Colin moved back to Kansas, burned a CD of about 19 songs and gave them to his good friend, Paul. Paul called Colin after listening to two songs and said that they had to start a band. And so The Roseline was born. Colin and Paul went on to record 2 full lengths -- "A Wall Behind It" and "Lust for Luster", which were self-released, critically acclaimed yet seriously lacking in sales. By 2009 the band had all but dissolved. Members moved, quit or were struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, as cliché as that sounds. Colin had pretty much given up on music at that point. He was finishing school as an Art History student when he went through a rough breakup with a girl he was engaged to. With 5 years down the drain, naturally he wrote a song cycle that would become "Vast as Sky". The record, mixed by the Jim Greer (Foster The People, Galactic, Kid Beyond, Irma Thomas) and Wayne Skeen, conveys the arc of a relationship -- starting with a saccharine sweet love song and ending in utter turmoil. It is by far Colin’s most personal, confessional and unashamedly sad record he’s ever made. But as the great art critic Dave Hickey once said, "Sad songs are the only songs." Heartbreak is simply a timeless theme and Colin did it justice – tastefully. That’s what The Roseline wanted -- to make an honest record and hope that it communicates with people. After all, it's a subjective business were in. ..