Featured Artist: Reason
This months Artist of the month is an exciting up and coming band from South Africa called Reason. Jason Zeeman, Shannon Sutherland and Riaan Kruger formed the Johannesburg based 3 piece rock band in 2003. In 2005 they supported Delirious? and have since supported Tree63 and many other bands. Last year they were winners of the South African Music Award (SAMA) for Gospel Rock Album of the Year. They have just tracked a new contemporary rock album with Darryl Swart (formerly of Tree63) as producer, which is due for release later this year and have just released a Worship EP entitled The 11th Street Sessions with Broken Records and Brettian Productions.
The concept for The 11th Street Sessions was born out of a conversation between Jason and the album producer, Jake Odendaal. "We decided to get the band in the studio, have a bit of a jam session and see what happened. We needed an 'in between' album while the full length album was being created and thought something like this might work. So we headed to the Broken Records studio on 11th Street and started the journey of making this music with friends and artists who shared the same passion as us. The basics were layed for the tracks in a matter of a few hours and then we just jammed away and came up with guitar lines, melodies and lyrics wherever it was needed. The result is this project called 'The 11th Street Sessions'. It's turned out to be something special to all of us I think as it's about so much more than Reason. The input from the O2 brothers was invaluable and we all had a great time in studio" explains Jason.
The 11th Street Sessions includes a much praised cover version of the Delirious? track 'Paint The Town Red'. Check out the Reason MySpace page to hear it for yourself. The EP is expected to be available on iTunes in the near future, and Louder Than The Music will be reviewing it for you soon.
Reason are currently touring South Africa as part of the RE:Generation Tour, spanning 16 cities and towns across South Africa, alongside John Ellis (of Tree63). The tour is visiting Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town this month amongst other places, and plans are already afoot next year for the tour to head to Australia and beyond. The tour will end with a DVD shoot at Mosaiek Theatre in Johannesburg on 17 October, and a concert in the UK is also in the pipe line, details to be confirmed shortly.
