Here are all the lyrics on the new album, if you guys have questions about specific songs or the album ask us here and we will respond!

1. Chuggin is For Choo Choo's

Hello from Close To Home land everyone!

As a lot of you guys know, we have had a lot of ups and downs as a band. We are going to share EVERYTHIGN with you in this blog. As a band that believes in honesty, morals, and faith, we really want to explain EVERYTHING over the course of the past few years with you, as we've gotten thousands of Myspace messages about it this year..

Around 3 and a half years ago we went on our first large national tour. All our hard work we put in as a band was finally starting to show. During that tour everything was going amazing. We were closer than ever as a band, playing in front of amazing fans every night, and being able to travel all over the country. It was an absolute blessing that we were all thankful for.

However... halfway through the tour our bassist Bradley Andress was brought into a hospital for what we thought was a simple cold. It turned out to be an extremely bad type of cancer. We immediatly dropped the tour, went back home, and supported Brad. We supported him all the way to his death almost three years ago.

After Brads death we didn't know where we stood as a band. Close To Home is not just a band to us, It's a way of life, and a passion we all share. We are more than just members to each other... We are family and best friends. We all knew Bradleys family as Bradley knew each and every one of ours. To this day it has been the toughest thing for each and eveyone of us. We still consider and will ALWAYS consider Bradley a part of this band, part of our family, and our friend.

After Bradleys death things slowed down for us. We were not doing much touring or writing much new music. Things were really just on hold as our lives were hectic at the moment. It was around that time a manager from LA called us and told us he thought our music was great. He said that we need to get back on the national level, get back to touring, get back to writing brand new music, and so on. He was saying all the perfect things. We talked as a band and agreed to continue and push as hard as possible. After all, it was what Brad would of wanted.

The manager flew out, stayed with us, built relationships with us, and even made promises to us. Not going to get into details, but he told us of a lot of accomplishments hes had and guaranteed quick results and the only pay he expected was to be treated as a sixth member of our band, which we found completely fair. We got a endorsement from a huge and great company shortly after this, other great endorsements, tour dates, and things were looking bright again.

Since he was the "sixth member" of our band and acting as manager, he controlled our bank account, finances, expenses, touring, myspace page, and so on. All he asked of us was to sit back and write the best music we possibly could and things were going to be in great shape. He said to trust him in the marketing and promotional things he was doing and the results will show. It wasnt one or two months after that our finances ended up getting in bad shape, tour dates were getting canceled, our myspace plays were exploding, our profile views were bigger than Kanye West's, etc. Things got out of control so fast it was overwhelming. He kept telling us this is what all bands go through during the growth of their careers and we'll be in fine shape. He told us if we're going to have the sales and money of a big band, we have to have the stats of a big band! He told us our CD sales numbers on the new CD we released ourselves were HUGE, showed us the amount we made in our bank acount, and that we were taking over as a DIY band. We even turned down quite a few label offers because of all this.

After a few months we were realizing that we werent personally getting ANY money from the account thousands was going into. We asked about this and he explained since our Myspace page was exploding he had so much going on so we had thousands of money coming in, thousands going back out to promote, order CD's, etc. We consistently every few weeks brought this up to him to see where things were and if they were figured out. It was ALWAYS an excuse.

What we did was have a meeting as a band to discuss the mess we were in. We just got over a death of a band member, and we were stuck in a completely lost situation with a manager that had every piece of account, endorsement, sponsorship, or any other type of band info. We had nothing except the KNOWING the guy running the show was ruining our image. Understand we all have our beliefs in this band and honesty, morals, and just basically being a good person is something we really care about. This was such a bad thing to have happen to us, and such a mess. What we ended up doing after that meeting was deciding to start looking into EVERYTHING as a band and keeping a close eye on the manager.

After we looked into everything, we found out the most shady things anyone could imagine. We decided to cut our losses and fire him. We lost thousands and thousands of dollars over this decision, but we feel we did the best thing we can as people. It was the right thing to do and we can live with that. This ex-manager is now in prison by the way. How anyone could take a band that just lost a member tragically and basically use them, lie to them, and do things that could tarnish their reputation is a sad, sad person.

So again we were at a all time low and not knowing what to do. We were so close to just giving up due to the fact everything terrible was just hammered down on us as a band. What we did was talk as a band about the next thing we should do. Again the first priority was honesty, morals, and faith... and to base our decision on that. What we decided was to talk to a manager who works for a large management company now in Washington DC that we all grew up with. He has known us since the beginning of our band (even before he was involved in music at all), and has been some of ours best friend for awhile. We are now managed by him.

We reset our profile views and asked Myspace to reset our play count to 0. Although we have 120,000+ of you myspace friends and the most amazing fans in the world, we are resetting everything so we can gain respect again. Anything you see CTH related will be honest and something we pride on from here on out.

We have some of the biggest things of our career coming up. We have a new CD that is due out in November that we are super pumped on! It is by far the best music we've ever done. We also have some HUGE news we cannot wait to share with you.

Remember this: Friendships can get you through the worst of times & family sticks around FOREVER. We are living proof of that.


- Nick, Josh, JJ, Travis, and Dan.

Ok ill try to keep the story short but I could write a book on it. I get a lot of messages asking about the story behind it. A lot of people know the general idea but I will tell you about writing it and everything.

If you didn't already know the song is written about our bass player, Brad, He died from cancer a little over a year ago.

We were on tour in Seattle when we took Brad into the ER for what we thought was a bad cold, maybe pneumonia at the worst. It turned out his left lung was totally collapsed by cancer.

We took all the money we had and flew him home, then had to drive from Seattle to Cincinnati....which is no joke. Thats about a 4 day drive.

We got to about Utah and realized, we are totally broke. So we continued to Denver and ran out of money. The tour we were on was in Denver that day, so we went to the show and played acoustic. Took donations and raised about 1,000 dollars (enough for gas home).

That night I became very very sick (pneumonia from sleeping in the van, in the snow, in salt lake city).

A fan we met a year ago on Warped Tour named Sarah let us come to her house. Her mom took really good care of us, made us a huge dinner, let us hang out as long as we wanted before the rest of the 24 hour drive back. It was the longest hardest drive ever knowing our best friend was home with out us, dying.

(also despite a lot of "industry" peoples advice, we dropped all our up coming tours, and a lot more. We get a lot of crap about how we honor our friends death. So the true story is we gave up so much to be with the one we loved, didn't question it, and would do it all over again)

We drove home, and than sat with Brad for 8 months. That boy was remarkable. He had a lung removed, brain surgery, heart surgery, chemo over and over....He would still come out and play shows even with staples in his head and side. Continually defied what the dr's said about how long he would live.

After 8 months and a week long HARD battle, he died. (Again I could write books on the things that happened in those 8 months, they will effect the rest of my life)

We spent the next year trying to figure out where to go from there. We still played shows and kept writing like we had never written before. We did a few charities and a memorial show/CD. Anything we can to keep his memory alive and keep him a part of all we do.

We decided to write a song about him and to name it "Seattle Skies" to represent 1. the night in seattle we took him to the ER and ended our tour, 2. the sky there is always over cast and sad. So it just made sense.

We wrote the music, and had the name. But we couldn't write lyrics. We tried, time and time again. Always starting from scratch, getting frustrated because we couldn't find the words or direction to take it. We ended up in the studio this last December, recording our new album. We knew this song had to make it on.

We recorded all the music, and every other song on the CD. The lyrics to Seattle Skies were the last thing to be done.

We sat and wrote it line by line, while singing it in the studio. Never having heard the song completed ever until a couple days later when we were going to mix it.

The first listen through with the band and our producer was pretty intense. Everyone just listened and kind of watched to see if anyone would cry. It was one of those moments where if some one would have cried everyone would of. Even our Manager had red eyes listening through it with us.

After the song ended we just sat there like wow, that was exactly what we were going for.

And that is the story. We wanted a song to capture the emotions, that even though we miss him it is a beautiful thing. Even though we cherish the memories, we still think about him not being here every second. To write a song that showed the high and low of losing some one you love. The high being, remembering the times with them and the love you shared...and the low being lost here with out them. We have a lot of hidden meanings in this song, and lines that apply to very specific situations, but I know it can relate to anyone. We hope that the song encourages other people going through similar situations. They aren't alone. And we pride ourselves on being down to earth so if some one needs to talk we are here to listen.

People often ask what does "Close To Home" mean?  Through the years I have found lots of reasons for the name, but the strongest to me is still writing songs like this. The one's that hit close to home, that capture something deep and personal. Real life, expression, isn't that what music is supposed to be about? To many "artists" have lost sight of the passion and made it hard to see when people are sincere.

Thanks for listening, and feel free to message us as always. We know so many out there have lost ones they love. Brad was the third friend for me to lose. We love and appreciate our fans, friends, and family like no other.

Josh.CTH

So sometime has passed since the last blog, so I wanted to give some updates.

It's been 2 months and a few days since Brad died. In some ways it seems like an eternity, in others it feels like yesterday.

We have been staying as busy as we can, I will give a brief summary of what we have done since then, then tell you what our plans are now...

Most of you know we played our show the day after he died...that was hard, very hard. We had alot of support from people though. His parents encouraged us to keep all the upcoming shows, and its what Brad would have wanted. We had alot of you guys travel from all over on short notice for that.... Thank You.

The funeral was beautiful, our best friends Made Avail (www.myspace.com/madeavail) drove up from Chicago as soon as they knew what happened and stayed with us untill the funeral was over. They even wrote a song and played it at the funeral. We played "please tell me" and it was one of the hardest things ever.

After all that we decided to do the next thing that made sense... We put together a CD called "Legends  Live On", We brought Made Avail out to our studio (The Bambooroom) and had our producer, Erwin Musper, record the song they had wrote for the funeral. We included some live tracks we did with Brad and other songs from bands that were his best friends or related to the situation. (www.myspace.com/legendsliveon)

The CD was released Dec. 8th at a memorial show we put on for Brad. The show was incredible...unlike any thing we have ever been a part of. Not the biggest crowd we have ever faced...but def. had a unique feeling through out the room. Everyone there was there for a reason, and it was a celebration of an amazing life and to perform as Brad would have us.

Anyways, that is a brief over view...we did shoot a music video the week before Brad died too. You can view it at the top of our page. Our friend Luke from Made Avail stepped in on bass for it.

Now to the future, I just cleared all our dates for Dec. other then a big Christmas show Dec. 22nd.

We will be in some very important meetings and doing alot of the "bussiness" side of things to the end of the year. Also working on lots of new material we plan on playing live soon. We hope to have some big news in the first few weeks of 2007.

For January and on we are looking to tour, tour, tour. I am currently seeking a full time booking agent for us, in the meantime I will remain booking myself. It looks like in January we will head down south to FL, then up the east coast for a few weeks.

Our CD is looking to be released in Europe in March. We should be going over there right around the time of the release.

Either way, lots of new stuff coming from us...

 

Josh.CTH

"Everything happens for a reason, if only to make us stronger....there's no where to go but up from here." -Brad Andress (BGTA)

alot of you already know alot of you will know soon... Brad will never suffer again.

It's been a long few days, no sleep lots of tears, and hugs.


I will keep it at this for now, we have much to tell but now isn't the time. We love you Brad, we will always love you and your dream will live on through us. We won't let it die and we hope no one else lets it die with you.

Keep the place ready for us brother. True heros always fought to the death and that is how you went out. A true hero...we will never find a person like you again to share this lifetime.

Love you with an undying love.

Close To Home
(Josh)

Sometimes life puts a bump in the road and you have the option to take a new path or plow right over it.

Well most of you know of our situation and the hell we have all faced over the past few months. As always, we refuse to quit, or accept defeat in this lifetime.

Brad continues his battle with cancer, on Chemo and Radiation, and we have all decided as a band that this is no time to be divided but stay strong together.

We are going to spoil our home town fans and play around here as much as we can for the next few months, with Brad. I will also make an effort to book anything on the East Coast I can personally book in the next few months, so if anyone has ideas or wants to help let us know! (Chicago, St Louis, NY, NJ, IN, OH, KY, TN, PA, FL, anywhere we can go out and get home quick)

We are exploring options for tours and stuff. We are all eager to get back on the road full time and see all you guys. We are a family though and we will continue this thing just as that.

We have been writing music non stop, and working on everything else we can. We do have alot of exciting things and possibilities for the future, I hope to share more of them soon.

In the meantime, keep the support coming. Keep listening and telling friends. We will be out there again and we will come play for you. To our local fans please come out to as many shows as you can and hang out with us. The support from everyone is what keeps us strong!

 

We love you all, and I will have more news soon.

 

Josh.CTH

 

We are looking for shows and tours right now. Mainly shows while we do some bussiness at home and Brad continues to get stronger. We want to do little 2-3 days out and back. soooooooooo

 

If you want us to play somewhere let us know! If you own a venue, work at one, or know some one who does let us know! If you have any ideas at all....let us know!

 I'm going to be booking a bunch of stuff myself starting now so leave info here and I will look into every single post as a possibilty :)

 

Josh.CTH

Ending with style live

Fourth of July live

1st News Clip

2nd News Clip

3rd News Clip

Brad Tribute!

 

Brad Andress is the bass player for Close To Home. He has been battling cancer for over a year now. The doctors thought he had recovered. Yesterday (March 9th) we took Brad to the Emergency Room on our way to Salt Lake City, for what we thought was just a cold. The doctor said brad had cancer that has spread to his lungs, and he is dying. We remain hopeful and request your prayers for Brad's health and his family. We in Close To Home have decided with Brad that we would end this tour, and be home to support him during this difficult time. Thank you to everyone who is sending encouraging e-mails to Brad. He needs to stay in good spirits as he fights this. Thank you all for your support, and we are sorry we cannot go on to the other cities. A lot of you have asked about how you can send money to put towards Brad's medical bills. You can make donations large or small by clicking the picture below.