Vertical Horizon

“The goal has always been to get as many people aware of the music as possible, sell records and be able to support our families and make a living,” lead vocalist/guitarist Matt Scannell told POLLSTAR.

“We felt that the management company that we originally had did a wonderful job for us, but they weren’t an experienced management team. So, when we amicably severed ties with them and got with Metropolitan, we were ready to get some new demos out there and we let the industry know that we were ready to date.”

The band – Scannell, Keith Kane (vocalist/guitarist) and rhythm section Sean Hurley (bass) and Ed Toth (drums) – claims it didn’t shop for a record deal per se. Instead, it let the sales figures (70,000 albums combined) and the live recording, 1997’s Live Stages, do the talking. “[Labels] could listen to the opening (of the album) and hear 1,200 kids screaming,” which proved Vertical Horizon’s popularity on the live circuit, Scannell said.

“We worked really hard and we traveled all over the place and we tried to make our live show as strong as it could be,” Scannell said. Vertical Horizon was self-contained for the first few years, managing itself, distributing its albums and booking its own gigs in clubs and colleges.

“We spent hours on the phone,” recalled Scannell. “Obviously, we were starting out in the lower echelon of clubs. We were fortunate enough to have a somewhat established act, Jack-O-Pierce, who was pretty popular in Texas and the Southeast and Southwest, really like our first record. They became friends of ours and they took us on the road.”

The band then went through a couple of booking agents before winding up with Monterey Peninsula Artists. “The thing about being on the road is that you’re sort of in a jar and you’re going through the highs and the lows,” Scannell said. “There are intense highs and intense lows when you’re on the road. People who are working in our management company are sitting in an office and they’re hearing the good things. They’re not going through the shit.

“You sort of lose perspective on where you were two weeks ago. You don’t notice a steady growth as much as someone who’s looking at it on paper. So it definitely got frustrating after awhile because we all wanted to see a more intense growth. But another factor is when you spend four years on the road, you need some time to just get back to your life and catch up.”

Most of Scannell and Kane’s adult life have been in Vertical Horizon. The pair formed the group in 1991 while attending Georgetown University. Originally an acoustic duo, they focused on strong harmonies and melodic song structures. “Grunge was so prevalent, I think some people were looking for a little more honesty,” Kane said.

Upon graduation in 1992, they recorded There and Back Again and began a nonstop touring ethic that continues today. “At the beginning, the goal started out as being ‘let’s make the $600 back that we spent on making a record,'” Scannell remembered. “We met that goal, and as you step up in levels of success, your goals get a little bit larger.”

The 1995 follow-up, Running On Ice, incorporated additional instrumentation but was still acoustic-based. That changed soon after with the addition of a permanent rhythm section, Toth and Hurley, which plumped up the band’s sound and opened up the possibility of a more driven sound.

“I think the thing that set us apart was we had songs that had integrity and music vocal harmonies that weren’t really around that much. It seemed to be a declining thing in rock music. Those are probably the two things that set us apart back then,” Scannell said.

In 1997, the group released Live Stages, recorded over two nights at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem, N.C., then it was “ready to date.” Among the tracks A&R reps heard were “We Are” and “You’re a God,” which became the lead-off songs on the band’s major label debut, Everything You Want.

Signed by David Bendeth at RCA, the band then took eight months off to write the rest of the album, which ranges from the love-loss of “Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)” to the energized jangle ‘n’ groove of “Finding Me.” “It was as close as I’ve ever been to being totally fulfilled,” said Scannell, who never had a chunk of time off to write before.

But since the release of the album, it has been back to what Vertical Horizon does best, and often – playing live. Everything You Want is closing in on platinum and the title track, the latest single, is receiving extensive airplay in several radio formats. This summer, the band will open for Third Eye Blind for two months then hook up with the Dave Matthews Band in September.