Prepare the Masses

Product Description

Following up on their tremendous success of their debut album release An Offer You Can't Refuse, Arizona's A Change of Pace returns with their highly anticipated sophomore album Prepare The Masses.

Combining forces with acclaimed music producer Elvis Baskette, A Change of Pace have made a record that will prove as both groundbreaking and timeless. Featuring the lead single "Shoot From the Hip", A Change of Pace offers a thundering anthem that introduces a newfound maturity and urgency to their sound.

About the Artist

Honestly, what do you remember about being 19 years old? Probably nothing. For the members of A Change Of Pace (out of Peoria, Arizona) that time wasnt exactly ages ago, In fact, for a few of the bands members (vocalist/guitarist Torry Jasper, drummer Jonathan Kelly, bassist Johnny Abdullah and lead guitarist Adam Rodgers) it was only a matter of months. But the memories they have from that time still seem to be reasonably summed up in one word. Nothing. Which is not to say the memories have faded.

What A Change Of Pace really remembers about those formative years is the nothingness of their hometown; the empty days and even emptier holes in their lives that it seemed like only music could fill. "I knew freshmen year that I didnt want to do anything besides play in a band," says now-20-year-old drummer Kelley. "[Torry and I] started out playing five years ago and we knew we wanted to get out of Peoria the minute we graduated from high school. We just had to."

Forming quickly over a shared love of early 90s pop-punk, Jasper and Kelley set the foundation for A Change Of Pace and the music that, after some member shifting, would comprise The Only Change Is Constant. That first self-financed EP was a record they would work into the grown post-graduation, as they set out on tour with like-minded contemporaries such as Senses Fail; all the while they continued honing the leaner and more explosive group of songs that would soon catch national attention.

Discovered almost accidentally in 2004 by manager Jorge Hernandez (who was poking around the ubiquitous Purevolume site starting, coincidentally, at the letter "A"), the bands management quickly ushered a deal with Immortal, who then set them up with famed Incubus producer Elvis Baskette. Somewhere in between Jasper watched his lifes first love come crashing down around him and the lyrics on An Offer You Cant Refuse, passionately and poetically, are furled by this particular (and painful) transition.

"That whole thing basically ripped my heart out of my chest and threw it all over the fucking ground," Jasper says now with a nervous laugh. "But Ive learned a lot. This record was my defense. It was something I had to talk about." With recording sessions to document it in both Phoenix and Baskettes hometown of Las Vegas, Jasper still sounds shaken by the relationship to this day. But listen closely to An Offer You Cant Refuse and theres a sense of maturity to his emotional purging that suggests a necessary attempt at moving forward. "Thing is, I was 17 when I wrote that record," Jasper insists. "I have a completely different perspective now."

The commitment A Change Of Pace have to these songs can, at times, be alarming; the range that Jasper flexes on the albums brooding ballad "A Farewell To Friendship", for instance, was almost lost completely when his vocal chords demanded an emergency tonsillectomy. "It is scary when you think of it," the 20-year-old singer shrugs. "I was screaming every night. I was smoking. I was drinking. Me and Jack, you know, we have a love/hate relationship, and that kind of took its toll." With his throat now healed, though, and the bands profile rising, A Change Of Pace are already looking to the future.