*~:~* The Band *~:~*

From a garage-based home studio in Columbia, South Carolina, to the roster of Columbia/FG Records, Crossfade's story is one of timeless American ingenuity intersecting with urgent youthful passion to make rock 'n roll dreams come true. Right now, a new chapter begins for this distinctive four-piece hard rock outfit as they stand ready to explode out of the Palmetto State with their potent 2004 self-titled debut album.

Featuring ten original tracks, the tightly constructed and aurally dense Crossfade was produced by the band, with post-production wizardry courtesy of Randy Staub, whose credits include Nickelback, P.O.D., The Cult, Monster Magnet, and Metallica, among others. Crossfade's signature sound is both fierce and melodic -- heavy and muscular hard rock infused with deeply felt lyrics, all surging under Ed Sloan's agile, driven and superbly clear lead vocals. The album's lead single, "Cold," was a hit at Active Rock radio in early '04, with Radio & Records describing it as a track that, "gives an overall feeling of foreboding, a feat accomplished through the band's standout vocals. The lead singer soars over the top of a bottom-heavy instrumental, and the harmony is impressive and unique."

Every one of the members of Crossfade remembers being profoundly moved by music early on in their lives, and starting to make it themselves at a very young age. They first began pooling their considerable talents in the late '90s when Ed Sloan left his first band, Darkchilde, and hooked up with Mitch James (bass, vocals) and original Crossfade drummer Brian Geiger to form The Nothing, a power trio described as "a kind of heavy metal Wrathchild/Metallica take-off." For James, it allowed him to live out the world-rocking experience he'd had at a David Lee Roth concert when he was a boy -- "Billy Sheehan ripped into his four-stringed instrument and made it grind, whine and sputter like a Harley -- after that, I was forever sold on the bass." They honed their live chops and songwriting both in Atlanta -- where The Nothing migrated for a time -- and around their Columbia home turf, where Ed began building a studio in his brick-solid, sound-proofed garage.

The subsequent addition of Buffalo, NY-emigre Tony Byroads, a seasoned vocalist and club DJ, made the group a quartet. "It was perfect for me," he recalls. I'd been DJ-ing for awhile -- turntable scratching and sampling -- but never in a band context. These guys let me bring those elements into their dynamic." At the same time, The Nothing morphed into something quite new -- the renamed Sugardaddy Superstar -- and the house of sound that Sloan built was dubbed the Sugarstar Studio. Within its cavernous confines, the four began creating the songs and recording the tracks that would ultimately evolve into the sonic force of Crossfade. "Sugarstar was a huge asset. It gave us complete control over our environment," says Sloan, "and allowed us to experiment in ways that, in a commercial studio, would have been impossible because of time and cost limitations."

While building their base in South Carolina, Sugardaddy Superstar also enlisted the renowned Los Angeles-based independent A&R company Taxi to help them develop their material. Through the Taxi affiliation, the band met veteran L.A. promoter Chris "Hot Rod" Long (Rage Against The Machine, Stone Temple Pilots), who quickly signed on as their manager. In late 2001, Sugardaddy Superstar was one of just three acts invited -- out of 8,000 member artists -- to play before thousands at Taxi's annual "Road Rally" music convention.

Word-of-mouth built to a roaring buzz after a rousing industry showcase in Los Angeles, motivating the band to return to Sugarstar, where they re-mixed eight of the ten intense tracks that now make up their Columbia/FG debut. FG A&R exec Doug Ford -- who had been following the rising rockers for over a year -- heard the album demo, originally titled Cold, and masterminded their signing to the label in early 2003.

Rechristened as Crossfade, the four longtime collaborators added two songs to the track list, worked on finishing touches with Staub, and saw little else altered on the fruits of their labors as it became the Columbia/FG release Crossfade. All the inspired experimentation that Crossfade injected into the making of the album remained, adding to its dynamic energy and independent spirit -- "None of us are really studio engineers," they explain, "we're just a band with some cool equipment." And now, a very cool sounding record. In 2004, James Branham replaced drummer Brian Geiger, who left the group to pursue other interests.

"The music on this album is very personal to me," says Sloan. "I can listen and feel the strong emotions that were the catalysts for a lot of the songs. I hope that listeners will be able to hear our music and make it their own, much in the same way that I connected with bands like Metallica, and other artists who really put a lot of actual feelings and meaning into their music and lyrics." While Crossfade's writing process often begins with Sloan fleshing out the basic structure on guitar, kicking around lyrics and melody lines, he says, "When we all get together and start to forge the song as a band, through, that's when it really takes off. Mitch is a phenomenal bass player, and manages to breathe energy into everything he touches. Tony will just start throwing out vocal ideas and great samples he creates on the pads, and they never fail to add a dimension and depth that wasn't there before."

From the first machine-gun chords of the blazing disc opener "Starless" through the last spiraling strains of its hypnotic acoustic closer, "The Unknown," Crossfade's auspicious self-titled debut charts the first leg of the band's journey to points afar in the great musical unknown. What is known, though, says Mitch James, "is that this is what we were destined to do." The commitment, integrity, ambition and artistry that so far has taken them from garage band to major label artist status promises that the fulfillment of that destiny will unleash one wild and uncompromising ride.

Crossfade 'Falling Away' CD Release date: August 29. 2006

When it came time to write and record the new Crossfade album, Falling Away, Ed Sloan and Mitch James (the band's Mick & Keith so-to-speak) could feel the heat of their own recent past as competition. Crossfade, the band's first album, struck platinum and generated a string of hit singles, including the radio mainstay "Cold," which made music history as radio's #1 Most Played Rock Song of 2004. The track spent a record-breaking 65 weeks on the Active Rock chart while spending more than 45 weeks on the Modern Rock chart.

"Everyone was talking about the 'sophomore slump,' so we knew to work extra hard to make this album stand above the last one, especially having a song like 'Cold' that was a world record breaker," admits Crossfade co-songwriter/co- producer/bassist/vocalist Mitch James, "but it wasn't really weighing on our heads. We wanted to put out a great album even if the song hadn't done what it had done."

The process of creating Falling Away took several months. Taking a break off from the band's on-going roadwork, Mitch and Ed began writing songs individually and spending some quality time with their respective families and loved ones. "It took us a while to get back in the groove," Mitch admits.
While Ed Sloan had written the bulk of Crossfade's debut album, Falling Away is a true collaboration co-penned equally by Ed and Mitch, with the two of them co-producing virtually all the tracks. "Ed's pro-active. He can sit in the studio and record some guitars and some vocals, do a little drum track and have some of a song already going before we even get in there. We pretty much split this album," says Mitch. "I wrote about half and Ed wrote about half. Most of it was just us sitting in the studio together just doing all-nighters. Ed and I got to the main soul of the song together and once we got to a certain point, we asked James (Branham, the group's drummer) to lay out the beat and that brought a whole new element to it."

The result is the strongest music of Crossfade's career, a new musical sophistication and no-nonsense emotional urgency roaring through the band's seamless patented vocal harmonic blends. "Everything on the album is a story that either Ed or I or both of us have endured," Mitch says sardonically about the new album's inspirations. None of that stuff is made up or even elaborated on. It's just straight truth."

While the songs on Falling Away come from the honest and direct experiences of Ed and Mitch, the emotional contours ring true for a universal set of experiences. "They're all about girls," Mitch confesses, "but if you don't say they're about girls, you can take them however you want. The songs could be about your parents or 'friends' who aren't really your friends. Most of our songs are about 'I'm done with you. I'm heading out. It's time for me to get out of this situation. It's bad for my health, it's bad for my mind.' The way we write--we hope people understand--we write from the heart. It's gotta be true."

The raw honesty that made "Cold" a record-breaking emotional anthem re-emerges on the 11 songs of Falling Away including the powerhouse first single, "Invincible," produced by Ed Sloan, Randy Staub (Metallica, Nickleback) and 2006 Grammy-winning Producer of the Year Steve Lillywhite. According to Mitch, "Invincible" was a song that Crossfade had "written a long time ago, but was too good to just let sit around. So we revamped it to make it a 2006 song."

The roots of Crossfade lie in Columbia, South Carolina, where Ed Sloan met Mitch James when the latter was about 14. Each played in the "most bad-ass band" in their respective high schools and were drawn to each other's musical tastes and talents. "By the time we got to be seniors, his band broke up and so did mine," Mitch remembers. "We're brothers, we've grown into one soul, it's kind of scary. We don't even talk out loud to each other. We know what we like in music and it's usually the same thing. If it's not, we know we can convince each other of it."
Those musical tastes included a shared affinity for the metal sounds of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Faith No More, System Of A Down, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains as well as a common appreciation for the pop song craft of ABBA and the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack. "We're musicians," Mitch confesses. "We're not just guys in a rock band. We're not here to make a huge leap in musical awareness, but we're here to have enough of a different sound that people recognize us and not think that we're any of the other bands out there right now."
Originally released on April 13, 2004, the band's self-titled debut album entered the Billboard 200 best-selling albums chart in July of that year and spent 11 out of 12 weeks (during October - December 2004) as Billboard's #1 Heatseekers album.

Crossfade's debut album was composed, recorded and self-produced in the group's garage studio in Columbia, South Carolina with Randy Staub's post-production work completed at Warehouse Studios in Vancouver. Crossfade reached the upper quarter (#41) of the Billboard 200 bestselling albums chart and was certified platinum, in honor of sales of more than 1,000,000 units, by the RIAA in August 2005.

"Cold," the first single from Crossfade, made music history as radio's #1 Most Played Rock Song of 2004. The track spent a record-breaking 65 weeks on the Active Rock chart while spending a record 46 weeks on the Modern Rock chart. Both "Cold" and its follow-up single, "So Far Away," were Top 10 records at Active Rock Radio. The album kicked out three hit singles -- "Cold," "So Far Away," and "Colors" -- all of which peaked within the Top 5 (at #1, #4 and #5 respectively) of the Billboard Monitor Active Rock chart. "Cold," "So Far Away," and "Colors" also peaked at #3, #4, and #6 (respectively) on Billboard's Mainstream Rock singles chart and at #2, #14, and #18 (respectively) on the Modern Rock chart.

One of the biggest artist development successes of 2004 and 2005, Crossfade performed on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Jimmy Kimmel Live," the "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," and the "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," among other television appearances.

A veritable touring machine, Crossfade has played hundreds of shows since the release of the group's debut album and is slated to hit the road in late August in support of the release of Falling Away.
Last May, Crossfade performed eight shows in 13 days for members of the U.S. military at several bases (including shows in Spain, Italy, Kuwait, Bahrain, Portugal, Turkey and a concert on-board a U.S. navy ship at sea). The Crossfade tour was presented by Navy Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) and Armed Forces Entertainment (AFE).

"We are thrilled that we can show our support for these men and women who put their lives on the line each day. It's because of our nation's military that we can do what we do for a living," said Mitch, speaking on behalf of the band on the eve of the tour. "We hope to continue doing more and more of these shows across the world to show our soldiers how much respect we have for each and every one of them."

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