You've heard of Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco right? Well now here's someone new for you to look out for. The Bigger Lights is the name of this aspiring rock band. Touring now with Hey Monday on their Let's Make A Mess Tour with Stereo Skyline, The Friday Night Boys, and This Providence. Their second EP was released in April of this year, and we caught up with JK to discuss their future in the music business.

JZ:Introduce yourself and what you do in the band.
J.K:My name is J.K and I play guitar and sing in The Bigger Lights.

JZ:What made you guys decide to start a band? How did it all start?
J.K:We all really loved music, and we all had similar goals. We just really liked music. As of how it started well, Dan and I were in a band in college, but we quit as soon as we graduated. Then we met Topher, who just started a band, and we all had similar goals, and had similar taste in music, and how we wanted to sound. We had a drummer for about a month, and then we got Ryan. About 2 or 3 months ago, as soon as we finished a tour with Never Shout Never! We have a guitar player named Chris who's out with us now too, and this is his first tour.

JZ:How would you describe the band in one word?
J.K:Umm, I think real, would be the word I would describe as clique as it might seem, I think like, all of us sort of grew up in an era where like bands were very real, bands had to like really be talented. Like you had to be able to do what you could to be able to get anywhere. Like you couldn't get away with like being bad. Does that make sense? For all of us, like our band, at the end of the day, we really wanna be is like honest musicians, and honest people. We wanna write songs that are real, and mean a lot to us, so, at the end of the day I guess that's what we want to be.

JZ:How did you come up with the band name?
J.K:Our old drummer, he came up with the name The Bigger Lights. It's actually it's pulled from Shakespeare's "The Tempest" when like one of the characters refers to the stars, as the bigger lights, and he's like actually referring to the great unknown. Which we thought was a super super cool symbolism. So we ran with it.

JZ:Who is your greatest musical influence?
J.K:Personally, I would say... it depends on when you ask me. Like long term, I'd say stuff for me like Queen, Aerosmith, Countin' Crows, and stuff like that like Coldplay. Absolutely stuff like that is what has effected me the most as a musician, uhh currently I've been listening to a lot of Bush Walker. That's because I love Bush Walker, and i think he's like an incredible song writer, incredible producer and performer. It's just a lot of different stuff, we get influences from everywhere.

JZ:You guys played at Bamboozle this year, how was that?
J.K:It was amazing, it was really really cool. We got to play on the nice day, it wasn't cold or raining, and it was really really cool. And a lot of people were there, and I'm not really sure what that guy was doing..

JZ: Have to ever been to Bamboozle?
J.K:I've never been before, it was my first time. It was definitely chaotic.

JZ:You guys released your 2nd EP in April, how is it different from the first?
J.K:I think it was a lot more polished. Umm, we had production help, we were a little rushed with the process, a lot of the songs used were older songs. We wanted to punch it up a bit, our next album will be a lot more rock-pop.

JZ:Well you kind of answered my question. Are you planning on releasing a full-length album?
J.K:*laughs* As soon as we get off this tour, in like July, we're starting to make our full-length in August. And we're gonna be in for probably 5 weeks, making the record, and hopefully it comes out sometime before Christmas.

JZ:What direction do you want the band to go?
J.K:More towards of a sound, maybe drawing influences, well-known influences, from the bands that have influenced us the most. I think we wanna deffinetly be more of a rock band, rock-pop band, a lot more of a Major Label band. I mean a major label is like, not necessarily to state we wanna be a major label band immediatly, but best to store the songs we wanna write. We all grew up with radio pop and that's the kind of stuff we wanna do. Hopefully we can write some stuff that feels real and honest and that people can connect to it.

JZ:Where do you see the band in 5 years?
J.K:Hopefully released several records that we are all passionate about, and getting to meet new people, and like interacting. Hoping we're doing the same thing we're doing now but more of it.

JZ:What is your favorite song to perform?
J.K:ahhhhh I think right now, Apocalypse is my favorite to perform, just because, people seem to be very reactant to it. There is so much energy in that song live from the audiences every night, I think that one's the best one on this tour so far.

JZ:What is your favorite city to play in?
J.K:ahhh...I think on this tour so far, the best show was in Salt Lake City, which is ironic, because Salt Lake City is not notorious and like us, but this tour we played was absolutely amazing and fun. But otherwise, like playing home in Northern Michigan is like really really fun, and like, Maine and Michigan have always treated us well, so we're excited to play in Michigan in a couple of days.

JZ:What is the best & worst part of touring?
J.K:The best part is probably being able to do what you love every night, and getting to meet some amazing new people, it's like great to get the chance to live out a dream you've had since you were a kid, and that part is like absolutely awesome. The worst part is definitely a lot of sleeplessness, and it's hard to find showers, sometimes and it's tough when you make a lot of friends, and then you don't get to see them very often. It's awesome making friends, but it's terrible not being able to see them.

JZ:If you could tour with anyone [dead or alive] who would it be?
J.K: Queen, and Freddy Mercury resurrected or Coldplay.

JZ:Who is your favorite band to tour with?
J.K:So far, honestly like a lot of the people we toured with, me made really good friends with. We love the people we tour with like This Providence is amazing. Off this tour, there's my favorite band called My Favorite Highway, that we're really rooting for, they're some of our best friends, we made friends with them like last spring, and it was like a lot of fun so. There For Tomorrow is really awesome.

JZ:Do you have any crazy stories from this tour?
J.K:We got stranded on the side of the road in Nebraska. We poped the trailer tire at about 5:30 am, then we poped the spare trailer tire at around 11:30 am, and so we got stuck on the side of the road.

JZ: Randomly in Nebraska.
J.K: Yup haha.

JZ:What's your favorite quote to quote from Family Guy?
J.K:We're currently quoting Carter Pewterschmidt, Lois's dad. There is a scene in one of the episodes where Peter asks for a Diet Rite, and Carter says no, these are my Diet Rites. It doesn't make sense unless you've seen the episode, but for us it's funny so we do the impersonation. haha.

JZ:Who twitters the most?
J.K:Oh my gosh, umm, Ryan, Topher, and Chris definitely "tweet" the most. Dan and I "tweet" the least. We just got Sean a twitter and got him started on it.

JZ:Who takes longest to get ready?
J.K:Topher Talley!

JZ: I knew it, and I was right.
J.K: hands down.