Hit The Lights

 

Our NEW EP "Coast to Coast" has officially been released on iTunes!!

Head over to the HTL MySpace to check out the title track "Coast to Coast"

 

The EP features 2 new songs, 2 cover of bands we were influenced by, and 2 acoustic versions of your favorite HTL songs.

 

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPreorder?id=319587205&s=143441

 

HEY RIOT BOIZ AND RIOT GRRLS,

It's almost 5 in the AM and I'm the last man standing after a long night of ragin with our boys in FIREWORKS and our main man, THE NIGHT BEAST. The only soundtrack to this blog is the soft whimper of THE DAVE quietly snoozing in my ear piece. Just wanted to hit you up with a lil HTL update. We're well underway into our AC SLAY TOUR (along with our hood-rat friends, A Rocket to the Moon) and it's been one of the funnestest (is that grammerically correct?) headlining tours we've done so far. Big ups and shout outs to our friends who've hung tough with us the last ten or so dates. We appreciate the shit outta the outpour and feedback about our new record, SKIP SCHOOL, START FIGHTS. If y'all like it as much as you say you do, do yours truly a favor and burn a copy for your best friend, pastor or pastor's bff. Pass the good word along because, shit, what else do you have better to do than help out some good ol' boys from Ohio?

Also, it's your only way into heaven. Just something to keep in mind.

Long blog longer, we still have shows in PA, MA, NY, NC, FL and GA left on this tour so COMMENT THIS SHIT HERE and let us know when you're gonna come out to get down!

luve,
Omar HTL

PS listen to THE SWELLERS and 2*Sweet and get the new Valencia record cuz yer momma would want you to

Last night, Hit The Lights played a last minute booked show in the lovely town of Niles MI. The venue had a strict "17 and over" policy unless accompanied by a parent (after it was advanced as an ALL AGES show...) and the local police department had nothing better to do then hang around harrassing the kids and enforce the rule. The letter below is a email sent from an angry parent to our management about the events that unfolded and below that is our response. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Omar HTL
________________________________

From: Rick B
To: Randy Nichols
Sent: Thu Aug 21 06:42:57 2008
Subject: Hit the Lights

Hello. I am the father of two sons who really have enjoyed the group Hit The Lights. I have even seen the group twice but last night at a show in Niles, MI they, despite having the small crowd of followers really happy, displayed some extrememly amateur stage verbage.

They certainly know that their music appeals primarily to ages 10-20 so to use cursing on stage and then to call the police, who were standing in the back, f___king d___khe__s, was way out of line.

As I said, the crowd was pleased despite the use of the F word a few times. The way to become more successful is to become more professional. Hopefully a few critics will help sharpen their skills because they have captured a great sound with fun songs.

Please relay this info. along and I hope to see them again in the area someday with even a stronger performance
_________________________________

Dear Daddy,
Its not our job to teach your kids to respect the police. It's yours, if you chose so. Our job is to make sure your kids have a good time and from the look of the smiles on their faces, we'd say mission accomplised. In a nutshell, you stick to your job and we'll stick to ours. Thanks for your continued support.

Skip school, fight your dad (and the popo)
Hit The Lights

Two days down on the "AC SLAY TOUR" and we're still kickin' babay! The first two shows have been in Lansing Michigan and Toledo Ohio and both shows have been some of the funnest we've played in a while! We've had some complications in re-routing some of the tour do to future obligations so just the fact that all you kids are coming out even with all the confusion means the world.

Further more, the past two shows have been some of the wiiiiild! Props go out to the girls that have held their own in the pit, I try to keep my eye out for any signs of trouble, but the chickies can HOLD THEIR OWN! We've been working on a new set and shits been pretty disasterous, but the kids just bring it so much harder, it's amazing. Two days ago we had a lovely 50-something shirtless gentlemen work the stage and crowd surf, last night in Toledo Kevin broke his nose on his own guitar(bad ass) and tonight we play a one-off show in Grand, Rapids Michigan with our good friends in Hawthorne Heights. Third day in and all that? - Yeah, I funkin' know. I can't wait to see the HH boys and further more I can't wait until our day off tomorrow when we see "Tropic Thunder". I've heard nothing about good things so BRING THAT SHITS ON!!! See you in a bit.

Nick

Dates:

Aug 18th - Grand Rapids, MI / The Intersection w/ Hawthorne Heights, Armor for Sleep - Buy Tickets
Aug 20th - Niles, MI / The Whitehouse (note: HTL are playing this without the touring package)
Aug 21st - Columbus, OH / The Basement - Buy Tickets
Aug 22nd - Pittsburgh, PA / Diesel - Buy Tickets
Aug 23rd - Sterling, VA / Sterling Community Center
Aug 24th - Towson, MD / Recher Theatre - Buy Tickets
Aug 26th - Rochester, NY / Water Street Music Hall - Buy Tickets
Aug 27th - Reading, PA / Silo Nightclub
Aug 28th - State College, PA / Sozo - Buy Tickets
Aug 29th - Poughkeepsie, NY / The Loft - Buy Tickets
Aug 30th - Easton, MA / Quad @ Stonehill College
Aug 31st - Farmingdale, NY / Nutty Irishman - Buy Tickets
Sept 2nd - Greensboro, NC / Greene Street - Buy Tickets
Sept 3rd - Jacksonville, FL / Jack Rabbits - Buy Tickets
Sept 4th - Orlando, FL / Backbooth - Buy Tickets
Sept 5th - Tampa, FL / The Orpheum
Sept 6th - Atlanta, GA / The Masquerade - Buy Tickets

Hey hey hey!! Whats goin on out there in the web world?? We are currently driving from Lima, OH to Plano, TX to play a show with The Ataris and Mae. Kevin and I flew in to OH today, the guys picked us up and we left for the lovely TEXAS!! The drive is gonna take around 18 hours, so we will be updating along the whole thing. Join us in our adventure to the south..you never know what we might do! Heeerrreee we gooooo!!!

Nate HTL

Yo kids we started the All Time Low tour last night! It was really good to see the boys in ATL since its been a little over a year since we have gotten to hang with them. The show went really well considering we are playing a bunch of new songs off the new record that we have never played before. I think there were about 750 kids there and everyone seemed to be having a good time out in the crowd taking care of each other and crowd surfing. We are gonna be in Greensboro tonight, so come out to get crazy with us!


Nate HTL

Midnight tonight two things will be happening:

ONE:

I'll be feeding my mogwai so I can turn it into a sweet-ass GREMLIN and I'll get all the chicks I wawnt;

AND TWO

...

WE'LL BE STREAMING OUR NEW ALBUM "SKIP SCHOOL START FIGHTS IN IT'S ENTIRETY!!!

Who loves ya? Yes, Jesus - but HTL doesn't think you're half bad either! Come check out the jams and let us know what you think!

Is '08 the year for HTL? These guys seem to think so:

So a couple of days ago all the electronic parts in the dash of the van started lighting up and going crazy followed by the van making weird noises. Luckily we were right near a Napa auto parts store and decided it was time to get  new battery since it had been about 2 years since it was changed and that light was going on and off. Well after 20 minutes changing that out because the old battery was pretty much rusted into the van, we noticed that the light was still turning on and off. The guy at Napa said we should go have our Alternator looked at because that could be the problem. Well needless to say it definitely was the Alternator and no one in the town of Parachute, CO(middle of nowhere) was going to look at it until he following day.....which meant miss the show and our trip to Las Vegas, NV!! Soooo I called and cancelled our room in Vegas while our TM called Set Your Goals TM and said we werent gonna make it. Nick and I started talking for a few minutes and decided what the hell...we are gonna try to change the shit ourselves and see what happens. GUESS WHAT.....no one in Hit The Lights knows anything about cars...hahahahah!! Can you say adventure??!! Well anyways I called my dad and he talked me through what I was supposed to do, we bought the parts and 2 1/2 hours later Nick, Dave and I had somehow succeeded in fixing the van and were on the road. We made it to the show with 2 songs left in Set Your Goals set and ended up playing a pretty good set!! Thanks you so much to SYG for letting us headline over them that night because we were bummed on not being able to play. I think we were literally at the venue for 45 minutes. The best part was yet to come. After the show all the bands headed to Vegas, lost money and raged alllll night long!! Probably turned out to one of the best days/nights/morning that we could have had in that situation!!!! This is why we love touring...you never know what will happen next! We are in CA for the next couple days, so check our myspace and come bring us cookies and fake moustaches.



Much Love
Nate HTL

Hey guys and gals we will be doing a warm up show in NJ on March 15th as well as direct support for The Audition tour. Please come out and give us some love. We want to hear you sing louder than ever before. Make these shows something to remember!! Here they are

March 15th

First Presbitarian Church

35 Church Street

Rockaway, NJ

w/ Red Light Green Light, Birth Screams, and Lady Radiator

$10 at the door

The Audition....dates still coming in but this is what we have so far!!!

03/18/2008 07:00 PM - Tremont Music Hall

charlotte, nc

03/19/2008 07:00 PM - The Canal Club

richmond, va

03/21/2008 07:00 PM - Sector 7 G

augusta, ga

03/22/2008 07:00 PM - Jack Rabbits

jacksonville, fl

03/24/2008 07:00 PM - The Social

orlando, fl

03/29/2008 07:30 PM - Emo’s

austin, tx

03/30/2008 06:30 PM - Crush Lounge

tulsa, ok

03/31/2008 06:30 PM - The Conservatory

oklahoma city, ok

04/04/2008 06:00 PM - Jillian’s

las vegas, nv

04/06/2008 06:30 PM - 12 Galaxies

san fran, ca

04/08/2008 06:30 PM - Avalon Theatre

salt lake city, ut

04/09/2008 06:30 PM - The Black Sheep

colorodo springs, co

04/11/2008 06:30 PM - The Waiting room

omaha, nb

04/12/2008 04:45 PM - The House of Bricks

des moines, ia

04/13/2008 05:15 PM - Varsity Theatre

minneapolis, mn

04/16/2008 06:30 PM - 2 Cents Plain

st. louis, mo

05/02/2008 04:30 PM - The Chance Theatre

poughkeepsie, ny

05/03/2008 12:00 PM - Meadowlands Sports Complex - Bamboozle

meadowlands, nj

See ya there!!!

 

Nate

 

What up peeps. A lot has been happenin since my last post. First of all drums, rhythm guitars, and bass are all fineshed for all the songs. The worst thing is when your finished recording and you have to figure out what to do with yourself for 12 hours of the day...ahhhhh!! Shit gets soo boring and you start going a little bit crazy! That's where video games come in. Omar by no means is a gamer dude, but when he started playing Call of Duty 4 on the 360 he was hooked. We couldn't get him off there for 3 days straight...when he finally beat the game. As for the rest of us we are Halo freaks including Omar, so come take us on if you dare!!! We are currently sitting in Red Robin waiting to get some delicious meats and cheeses. Its nice to go out after a sweet party with the dudes and our friends in the band Fireworks. We miss those dudes a ton, so it was nice to see them.Anyways we are gonna go stuff our faces until our stomachs hurt...woooohoooo!! Tomorrow starts day 1 of lead guitars and vocals..get stoked!!!!

Guess what dudes and dudettes!!! Drums for 13 songs are now finished for our full length. We are doing drum edits the rest of the day and will be starting bass on monday afternoon. On another note we are ALL addicted to playing Halo 3 online, so if ya wanna play hit me with your gamertag! Stay awesome.

As some of you may know, others will know very soon...we are in the studio recording our full length record. We just finished writing and demoing all the songs. Everything has turned out amazingly and I can't wait for all of you guys to hear it! We start drums officially today. I will be updating on here daily with photos, journal entries, and videos, so make sure your checking back to see what's happenin in the land of HTL!! Later.

Hey what up. I am writing as I sit here on my break from working at the Gap. There are soooo many crazy people that come out during the holidays...hahaha, but that makes working more and more intersting the closer we get to Christmas.
So with Christmas comes finding the perfect chrstmas tree. My fiance her dad, nephew and I went to cut one down. Now my fiance is very, very picky when it comes to choozing the correct one. We went out around 5pm and were there for at least an hour, cut it down dragged it to the front where you pay...which felt like a mile and that was that. We now have the "perfect" tree. After losing feeling in my feet and my fingers it was all worth it. Now the question is...Where can we fit this giant tree??? I will post pics tonight when I get home. Xoxox Nate

Yo what up. I have been hangin at home for a little while now. It has been really nice getting to spend some time with my family and friends. I had 2 great turkey dinners...what more could I ask for since we have been on the road so long eating terrible fast food. I wish I could bring my moms cooking on the road with me.Hmmm maybe she will consider riding in the vand and preparing dinner everynight...I will keep you posted on that. Anyways, I just returned from writing and recording three new HTL demos and a cover song which will be named sometime in mid-december. We havent gotten to hear any of them yet, but as for when I was there everything sounded amazing. Nick did all the vocals on all the songs and sounded great. I am super pumped for you guys to hear them when they are done.

As for being at home, for the holidays I am working at Gap so I am not super bored sitting at home all day. Let me tell you Gap is one of the easiest, chill jobs I have ever had. So far none of the people have sticks up their asses thinking they are better than anyone which is rad. Plus the big winner is that I get 50% off all of their clothes...which I will probably use to buy like 6 new pairs of jeans. So if you see me on tour wearing some sweet gap jeans you know why...hahaha. With the rest of my time I will be playing drums with a bunch of bands around Rochester just for fun. HTL will be recording early next year so I have to keep my chops up for that. Ok awesome, I think that brings everything up to speed for now. I will be posting on here a couple times a week with any interesting things that happen, as well as pictures so keep checking back.

One last thing I wanted to say was about my good friend Casey from Hawthorne Heights. As many of you may already know, he passed away this week. I spent a good amount of time drum teching for those guys and got the incredible opportunity to get to know Casey and all the guys. Casey was one of the craziest, funniest, big hearted people I have met, and losing a friend like that is one of the hardest things I have ever had to deal with. I found out about two hours before I had to play a show and let me tell you, it was the last news I thought I would ever hear. I am sitting here thinking about it and it still isnt something I think is real. Its something I dont want to believe, but I have to. If there is anything you guys can do for me, its to keep Caseys family and friends in your prayers. Please make sure you dont take anyone you know for granted, because you never know what could happen. I miss you Casey. I will never forget all the good times we had. To Matt, Eron, JT, Micah, Nightbeast and Caseys family....you guys will get through this. Its going to be hard for awhile, but you guys will pull through it. Just keep helping each other.

Thanks to all of you who have stuck by us through everything. It means more than the world to us. You will hear new stuff soon, I promise. Later.

Nathan 

so a lot has gone on since our last update, we had an amazing easter. our friends in just surrender came to the show in seattle and the promoter hid easter eggs in the venue which was frikin hilarious! we ate sushi and i ended up having too much rice so i had to make myself throw it up before we played. i'd rather pull the trigger myself then have it come up on stage when i'm jumping around like an idiot. nate saw it, it was pretty gross. aside from that the kids were awesome and we had a drunk kid named gabe sing "it's all the rage" which was hilarious. all the just surrender kids were busy getting wasted themselves, thanks for the great easter dudes!
all the rest has been driving and driving. we're in kansas city tonight, closer to home and more familiar kids. i can't wait to play chicago and detroit, those kids are always kick ass. valenica is staying at the same hotel as us tonight so we should have a little bit of fun. see you kids soon.

love,

nick

we're staying in hunting beach today and tommorow. we've got a show at the chain reaction today, we're pretty stoked about it. we've played a bunch of times at that venue but the fact that we're actually headlining a show there is pretty mcsweet. we had a day off in san diego and got to go to the zoo. it was an awesome zoo, frikin huge, but all of the sweet animals were hiding. dave bet me five bucks that i couldn't wrestle a stick of bamboo away from a panda. he won. ohio state lost to florida again. the boys are really starting to bum the eff out of us. whatever, next year we'll get 'em right? hell, i don't know. i'm gonna go tear chain reaction a new butthole. talk to ya soon!

nick

Sittin in third bench right now on our way to Orlando, FL. The weather is beautiful out...much better than at home with all the snow. Last night we played in Jacksonville and it was one of the top ten hottest shows we have played to date. Its always fun to play places like that because it challenges you to keep yourself from passing out while playing(not fun if it happens). I gotta cut it short because I ate maxican food for lunch, so I need to go take care of that. When in Rome.

Nate

Let me start by saying I think that NYC is the worst place for bands to try and find parking...stressful as hell. BUUUT...it was absolutely insane to play. We have loved every minute of this tour...all the bands all the fans, etc. We are heading to Allston, MA and for those of you who have not been there you need to go eat at this restaurant called Grasshopper...that's where we will be. See you there!

Nate

hellllll yeeeeeah son, we gotsa day off! we're probably gonna go see 300, i heard it's insane i'll let you dudes know for sure. the show last night in Rochester was awesome, a big thanks goes out to you kids, the fact you come out to see this tour and can sing along with every song means everything to us and the other bands. not to get sappy, but it's the reason why we started doing this. we've been through a WHOLE lot since this band started and it feels like we're just now starting to get responses out of people. it feels good. like the feeling you get when you listen to a 'Luda album. actually, i'm going to get that feeling again, MOVE BITCH GET OUT DA WAY!!! love, nick

Sitting here next to mah buddies in just surrender and valencia listening to everyone's new demos and songs. they're all frikin great, all of the demos sound like the bands stepped it up ten fold, if you're a fan of either band you have a lot to look forward to. we're in buffalo tonight, it'll be our third show on the let it ride tour, the first two shows have been insane, if the rest of the tour goes as swimmingly it will probably be the best tour of my life. i've got a chub right now. a fat chub. i effin love touring the east coast, short drives and NO WYOMING! If you get a chance, remember to listen to the song "every other time" by LFO, it makes me wanna party sooooooo hard bro. speaking of party, that's all this tour is so make sure you come out and join. we'll play beer pong or tap a keg. it'll be ball'in. see you dudes on the road! love, nick