Snohomish County natives Beth Whitney and Bradford Loomis have each been performing independent of one another and making name for themselves for years. They met each other almost two years ago when Loomis caught wind of Whitney’s record release.
“I had seen her name before but wasn’t familiar with who she was, but I loved her music and found out she was from Snohomish,” Loomis said. “I hadn’t seen her before so I asked if she would do a show. She was really really good and I loved it.”
Once they met, Loomis asked Whitney and her husband Aaron to be his band for his upcoming record release show. After that the two stayed in touch and in August 2013 they decided to sit down and write together.
“We wrote the first song in two hours, just happened real quick,” Loomis said. “Our styles are very different but blended together real well and we had to decide what to do. Would she release them? Would I release them? So we decided to release them together.”
What followed was the release of their album, “The Banner Days,” which came out last month and has been climbing the Alternative chart on iTunes, reaching as high as No. 22, which is higher than many well-known national names who had releases the same week.
“The Banner Days” consists of seven tracks — two originally written by Whitney, two by Loomis and three songs written together. Though four of the songs were not written together, the album is a cohesive beacon for hope.
“There is a theme, I don’t know if it was intentional or just where we both were in our lives, but a seed of hope through suffering,” Whitney explained of what inspired their songs. “The songs that we wrote together spring from this place where things are tough, the situation is hard. What are you going to do about it? That is the springboard for these songs.”
This is clearly illustrated in the lines of the song “Song in My Head,” when Whitney sings “Some carry sorrow like a blanket of lead, but I tell you I carry mine like a song in my head.”
Listening to “The Banner Days” isn’t just nice on your ears, but also makes it easy to remember that while things may be hard right now, they are getting better all the time.
When asked if it was reasonable to expect that these two will work together again on another record, they said in unison without a doubt in their faces: “Yes.”
Judging by their fast success on this first project together, it will be exciting to see what Whitney and Loomis do next.
Steven Graham writes about local music at www.heraldnet.com/whatradio. Email him at steven@whatradio.com or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/whatradioblog.
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