Interview with Brightshine

Tapping into energy comparable to that of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Tom Petty, California-based quartet Brightshineredefines improvisational rock by focusing on strong songs and arrangements, creating an irresistible style that is syncopated, ethereal and rocking.

Founded in 2019, Brightshine is led by songwriter, singer, producer, and lead guitarist Pete Sawyer, who brings his extensive experience in the Northern California music scene into the band, which features Celso Alberti (Steve Winwood), Eric Levy (Night Ranger), Paul Rustigian (Freestone Peaches), Murph Murphy (Poor Man’s Whiskey) and Maria Caycedo (VerisimoOpera Company)

Brightshine has played notable venues including The Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Ashkenaz, 19 Broadway, and Michael’s On Main, among many others. With their upcoming release, they’re sure to create waves within the music industry, making Brightshine one jam band you just can’t miss.

Are you finding the isolation of the pandemic conducive to your writing or is it hindering the experiences you can write about?

I tend to write songs in spurts. I’ll have a long dry period followed by a time when they just start coming to me. I have no control over it and I can’t make them come. If I try to write, the songs are always inferior to what I come up with when they come out naturally. When the pandemic started and it became pretty apparent that we weren’t going to be playing music together anytime soon, it was pretty devastating and emotional for everyone. From 2017-2020 I had just put a ton of work into starting Brightshine, releasing our first album, “Shadows In The Sky,” and starting to gig around Northern California, so I was extremely bummed to have to put everything on hold. It was a pretty dark time for me. Oftentimes dark times produce good songs and this was the case for me in 2020. After a few weeks, the songs started to come, and they were some of the strongest material I had ever written. I was working really hard on my singing and that definitely influenced the melodies I was writing. I was able to express myself in music more fluidly with my voice so the songs had a purer channel to come through. Eight out of the ten songs on our new album, “The Wire,” were written during the pandemic, and I’m pretty sure that this batch of songs couldn’t have been born without the extreme situations of 2020 and 2021.

What can we expect from you within the next 6 months? Are any releases planned? Future gigs?

We are due to release our new album, “The Wire,” on July 23rd and that will coincide with an album release party gig at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, California on that date. We are currently booking more gigs throughout Northern California. Keep an eye on our website, www.brightshinemusic.com, and follow us on social for up to date info!

Are you planning any videos for your music?

We will be releasing at least 4 singles with accompanying videos from our upcoming album. The video for the first single, “New Days,” is out now and is doing really well. You can go to Brightshine’s YouTube channel to check it out. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqDDVf4qVEI. We will be releasing one video per month for the next few months, so keep an eye on our YouTube channel.

How do you go about writing a song? Do you have a melody in your head and then write the other music for it?

I do occasionally start with a melody. Most of the time I’ll start with a guitar lick or chord progression. Oftentimes when I’m going to be rehearsing for an upcoming gig with Brightshine, or one of my other bands, I’ll usually mess around on the guitar for a bit to get loose. Sometimes an idea will pop up during that time and whatever project I have that day will be put on hold while I follow the song down the rabbit hole. I’ll typically build up a section and start getting words to it and see where that leads me, and then I’ll usually get a verse or chorus and eventually a bridge. I’ll spend a couple of hours playing it that day and keep coming back to it for the next few days, refining it until I feel that it’s done.

Do you enjoy recording and production?

I love it. I learned how to engineer and produce records at the same time I was becoming a full-time musician. Writing a song and then working with my bandmates to craft an arrangement, and then producing, recording and mixing the song is pretty much the most amazing thing that I can do. I love the fact that I can create something out of thin air—something that never existed before—and, with the help of my endlessly talented, creative, and patient bandmates, make it into a song that anyone on the planet can listen to is just awesome!

What was the last TV series you watched on TV?

I just finished “The Queen’s Gambit” and I loved it. I was pretty into chess as a kid; I used to play with my grandfather all the time, so I enjoyed thinking about the game again. The characters were really well written and the acting was superb.

If you were talking to a younger version of you, what advice would you give yourself?

Focus more on taking responsibility for your mistakes and stop trying to blame others when things go wrong.

Are you a valuable asset on a Pub Quiz team?

Yes, I know many useless facts!

Do you have any lucky items, objects, or traditions?

I met this old hippie in the Haight Ashbury in the ‘90s. We ate breakfast next to each other in a cafe and had a great conversation. He asked me to come out to his car with him after breakfast. He gave me a railroad spike from the stretch of railroad in Mexico where Neal Cassady was found dead. Cassady was a big hero to the beat poets and The Grateful Dead and therefore was a hero of mine, so I was pretty humbled by the gift. I still have it in my studio and I feel like it’s a pretty powerful object…If you don’t know who Cassady is, Google him. What a character!

If you were captain of a ship, what would you call it?

The SS Brightshine!

The Wire” was born out of quarantine, a period that proved to be creatively fruitful for the band. During this time, their funky style incorporated energizing rock-based sounds. Brightshine’s expressive playing, and scintillating, deeply musical improvisations showcase Sawyers’ stylistically diverse compositions and feature unusual and masterfully executed harmonic structures that are adorned with deep, multi-layered lyrics. With most of the album recorded live off the floor of the studio, the group’s excitement in being able to play again after quarantine explodes out of the deep grooves kicked out by the band, while their innovative expansive sound plays like every note they hit is their last.