Nixon On Framing Hanley, Their Album, Kickstarter Campaign

I think when we first did Kickstarter, it was at a time when crowd-funding wasn't the phenomenon that it has become today, and we didn't necessary know how we felt asking basically, for lack of terminology, for money from our fans. But we felt if it was something where we made the perks and the rewards cool enough, maybe people would wanna be involved and it would be something cooler than us just getting funding for our next album. Our fan base went above and beyond what we ever imagined doing, so it was a pretty neat experience, and it is good to finally have this album coming out for them.

It was kind of a mutual decision on both parties. We felt like maybe going in and exploring other avenues when it was a good time in our band for that. We released two albums with Silent Majority Group and had a great relationship with those guys and did a lot of great things being on that label. But ultimately we wanted to see what else was out there for the band and now were here today on Imagine Records and couldn't be more excited.

Personally, I'd say "Castaway," and I'd actually say the five of us probably feel all the same way. Over the past few years, there's no certainty in this industry. There's no dependability even so there was a lot of two and a half, three years of working on this album with a lot of low points, as well as high points. I think really it reached the point that "Castaway," itself was written about – I'm here until this ship goes down. This is all I've poured my heart and soul into as well as the guys in my band for the past seven years, a better part of a decade now so it's like you know if there's just two people out there still willing to listen to Framing Hanley, we are here until those people are gone.

Chris, our drummer, and Luke, our former bass player, who just recently left the fold - those two guys played together in high school over the years, and I remember we were attending the same community college and never meant one another and I was actually looking on a bulletin board on campus for a job because I was broke, and well and behold, of course, I was instead attracted to some band who is is looking for a lead singer. We always joked initially it was quite the opposite of a job - because you actually make money with a job - being in a band it's quite the opposite of that so it was by chance really. I so happened to be looking for a job at the time on this job application bulletin board on campus and a band posted, they weren't even supposed to post it on that board either - that they were looking for a singer, and I went and tried out. And, you know, over the years I think we added the pieces here and there through coworkers or mutual friends of acquaintances and stuff like that and its become the band that it is today.

"Here Me Now," was the track that did it, we did that song in 2007 with Bret Hassel, actually, man, it may have been 2006 initially I don't know it all seems so so far away. It was just a song I think spoke to Jeff Hanson from Silent Majority Group. He dug the tune, and we were young and at the time it was awesome to know there was a label out there saw something in your band and had a vision that included your band. It was not expected - it was completely unexpected for that to happen. I remember receiving a call from some months later after recording the song with Bret Hassel. I received a call from him while at my job working at for a cell phone company, he let me know that a label guy was gonna be calling me here in the next 30 minutes and I'm like, 'Woah, what I'm at work right now man! I'll see if I could take a lunch break. He is like your gonna wanna take the call!' So yeah, I'm glad I took the call.

That's just something - I started playing music again when I was in high school, and I was in a band with another guy named Kenneth and we just went by our last names because it made it easier to know who was talking to who. And, you know, locally in the scene in Nashville people of course came to know me as Nixon and him as Halfcoat, was his last name so it just stuck. I think people around here just knew me by that instead of Kenneth. It is funny because my wife, who obviously has the same last name, in the existing of me knowing her she has never called me Kenneth. It's always been Nixon. It's a bit of pain though when I get on my son about something and I'm like Kaedyn Nixon, and he's like, 'I'm not Nixon! You're Nixon!' So yeah, that's a bit of a growing curve we weren't expecting, but it was nothing like Kenneth sounds more like a doctor or a dentist than a rock artist, but it was nothing like Nixon sounds so cool, I was just in a band with another guy that shared the same first name and like a football team it just made it easier to know who you are talking to.

All of our favorite bands just find a sound and keep that sound, bands like Foo Fighters, Thrice, Incubus those are bands that I love because I feel like I'm getting a new flavor from that band on top of the stuff. I love with their new albums. That's what we want, even as a song writer I feel you should push yourself to evolve and that's the situation we are in now and even on this album, The Sum Of Who We Are, we didn't set rules or restraints as to what type of songs we could write, and I feel that is why we have an album with 12-13 tracks that differ from one another, and I think that's why you can hear a song like "Castaway" that closes the album that is unlike any other song on the album. So I think if it ever reaches a point where we do think were putting out like the same albums, we are doing us and our fans a disservice.

Relentlessly! We are going to tour our asses off! It has been too long since we were able to be on the road and play shows consistently. That's the reward in all of this. It's why you beat your head against the wall doing albums. It is so you can meet the people that make the connections with the songs and lyrics that you are writing. We were a band in 2009. We were doing 200-250 dates a year, so it'll be good to get out there and do that kind of leg work again