Birth Name: Brandon Caulfield
Born: February 12th, 1987
Origin: Seattle, Washington
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Genres: Rock, Alt-Country, Alt-Rock, Folk, Americana
Occupations: Musician, Singer-songwriter
Instruments: Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Keyboards, Drums, Harmonica
Years Active: 2010-present
Labels: Cosmic Records (2010 - 2011), Chaos Records (2011 - 2013) Ocean Records (2013 - Present)
Associated Acts: The Bards, Hannah Beth, Cristina Lake, Ellie-Grace Summers, Johnny McDougall



Born Brandon Caulfield on February 12th 1987, in Seattle, Washington, he’s a alt-country/rock singer-songwriter and guitarist with a voice to bring a tear to your eyes. With raw emotion and huge intensity he puts everything into his music and following a critically acclaimed debut album, Into The Wild Part I he is set to hit the touring circuit this summer but not before heading into the studio to record his follow up record, Into The Wild Part II.
Caulfield is the only son of Renée and Robert Caulfield and has an older sister, 26 year old Manhattan based photographer, Haley Caulfield. He has lived in Seattle all of his life and is of Irish and French descent. His great grandfather moved his family from Dublin to Seattle in the early 40’s and his mothers family moved from Calais, France to New York in 1962.

Caulfield was brought up around music from an early age and his first memory’s of music was his mother playing Brigitte Bardot records but it was after hearing a collaboration between Brigitte Bardot & Serge Gainsbourg when he started to become obsessed with music.
His father was a more conventional rock fan and this affected Brandon’s music education, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, Tom Petty, Van Morrison and Eric Clapton are all heavily embedded into Brandon’s memories of his childhood and have now became big influences on his own style.

He was always an outsider at school from a very early age and quickly came to resent the people around him, often isolating him in his bedroom for hours, his parents often tried to get him into therapy to figure out why he was so content on being isolated from the real world.
And when he became a teenager, the pressure’s to fit in at school and be popular continued to fuel his resentment for his fellow teenagers, he continued to isolate himself and has stated that he only ever had one close friend called Isabel.
He would spend almost all of his free time in his room reading and scribbling down things on paper and writing down almost everything that popped into his head, it was during this period when he started to learn his craft as a songwriter and soon decided to take up guitar, his parents chose not to buy him a guitar, stating that school was more important than trying to be John Lennon. He therefore decided to take matters into his own hands and stole an acoustic guitar from a record store during a trip to Los Angeles, claiming he found it on the street whenever asked by his parents about it.

He dropped out of school at 16 with no grades and he took a job as a cleaner at a local shopping mall, he recalls that he’d often see former school students and says that the look that they gave him while cleaning the floors is the fuel he uses to become “a better person than they’ll ever be.”
He held down this job for 3 years and at the age of 19 he decided to attempt to make it in music, playing various small clubs in the local area, often playing to maximum crowds of 15 people. He stated that although it was tough financially, the freedom of it was the thing he had been searching for all his life.

His education in the form of formal qualifications is non existent but his education as a person is what makes him unique, his fondness for literacy and poetry is almost obsessive, often quoting Edgar Allan Poe and Jack Kerouac during performances, he has self destructive periods in his life, often disappearing for months to isolate himself and is often searching for clarity in his life, he has described himself as a loose cannon but stopped to point out that he isn’t violent in the slightest.

As a performer his style is very recognizable for it’s intensity and his emotional vocals, he is shy and retiring at the best of times and struggles with huge self doubt.
He signed a record deal with Cosmic Records, a label run by legendary musician JR Rhythm in November 2010, and began work on his debut album in January 2011, however not a lot has been happening with Caulfield following the release of the album, having chosen to delay touring so that he can work on his follow up album.

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DISCOGRAPHY

ALBUMS
Into The Wild Part I (February 21, 2011) [#40]
Into The Wild Part II (May 15, 2011) [#12]
Tales From The Heartlands (July 29, 2012) [#3]
Some Roads Lead To Nowhere (December 22, 2013) [#3]
Wherever I May Lay My Head (January, 2015)

SINGLES

2011
Until You're Nothing (February 6, 2011) [#5]
Follow My Ghost (April 17, 2011) [#8]
Patience & Grace (May 22, 2011) [#DNC]

2012
Fireflies & Bedouins (March 11, 2012) [#5]
The Ballad Of A Vagabond (feat. Cristina Lake) (July 22, 2012) [#1]
My Disenchanted Society (August 12, 2012) [#6]
Wild Is The Wind (feat. Hannah Beth, Hayden & Isabel) (November 4, 2012) [#1]
Better Days Ahead (December 2, 2012) [#1]

2013
Arizona (January 1, 2013) [#1]
Nightbirds Are Flyin' (August 11, 2013) [#1]

2014
It Looks Like Heaven Has Another Angel Now (June 28, 2014) [#2]
Wildflowers (October 11, 2014)

E.P'S
Floored & Beaten (December 18, 2010) [#N/A]
Ashes Of Dreams We Let Die (March 25, 2012) [#4]

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TOUR DATES

Elizabeth, You Make Me Smile (4:32)

On May 3, 2011 The Bards announced their new lead singer was the 24 year old singer-songwriter Brandon Caulfield, who has recently been creating a name for himself with his second album Into The Wild Part II, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and it became pretty clear that his star is clearly rising. Having signed a two album solo record deal with JR Rhythm’s label Cosmic Records in December 2010 it’s evident that Caulfield has been on The Bards lead guitarist’s radar for a while now and following on from the positive reaction for Caulfield’s work and The Bards interest in bringing in a new lead singer it’s pretty clear who the obvious choice was.

Various names have been thrown around in terms of who was going to take over the lead singer role with The Bards, Caulfield was mentioned heavily and quickly became one of the front-runners, but names like Eric Quillington, Matt Urie, Nicole Woods, Michelle Green and Alicia Lena were all mentioned having all worked with the band in the past on their Allies I, II and III collection. However the favourite remained Mr. Caulfield and it was duly announced on May 3, 2011.

This is an extremely high profile role for anyone to fill and the fact that the promising young 24 year old has agreed to take on this mammoth task, show’s his confidence. The band have gone through three singers in their history and some have question Caulfield’s decision with many believing that the role is cursed with future vocalists struggling to live up to the extremely high expectations of the original lead singer Jack Fate.
Whether this venture will be a success or a failure remains to be seen but having announced their debut single the only thing that is clear is that only time will tell.


Song Description

The song begins with the piano introduction from Brandon Caulfield, quickly followed by J.R Rhythm on guitar, Moe Z on Bass and T. Tome on Drums. The piano becomes the most dominant instrument as Brandon begins to sing the first lines of the song, “Lonely And Bitter/Fragile And Broken/Your Words Are Final/Now That You’ve Spoken.” With his trademark soft vocals, but as the song continues, The Bards begin to hit full gear with J.R Rhythm leading Caulfield into a more powerful vocal, as Caulfield begins to raise his voice and show’s how he will fit into this band and he begins to sing, “And I’ll Sing To You … My Sweetheart/But I’m Not The Man I Was, When I Wrote This Song/So I’m Gonna Need You To Help Me, To Sing Along/And I’ll Sing To You … My Sweetheart.”

The vocal somewhat reminiscent to Born To Run-era Bruce Springsteen and as the song continues on, it becomes clear that Caulfield is relishing performing with such a strong musical pedigree alongside him, the question now is how will the band take to having this young guy being centre of attention.
As the song comes towards the chorus it becomes clear that this song was written by Caulfield, with his trademark Songwriting style coming across and his penchant for a rhyming chorus as he sings, “And You Know You Quench My Thirst/If Only For A Little While/Because Elizabeth/You Make Me Smile.”
The song then continues with the band in full swing and Caulfield more than holding his own with these musical heavyweights, Caulfield inhales a deep breath which can clearly be heard on the song, I’d say it was kept in on purpose, perhaps to add to the effect and he then begins to sing again, “But This Time It Will Be Different For Us, You’ll See/Because Your Beauty Has Been Haunting Me/And When You Smile, The World Crumbles To The Ground/But That’s Ok, Because Your Still Around.” and with that the music begins to soften again as Caulfield repeats the chorus two more times before the song ends.


Songwriter’s Analysis

“I wrote this song, in a two week period recently. It was written in Elizabethtown, Indiana in April during my recording for Into The Wild Part II, I played it a couple of times during the recording sessions, once just on the piano and once just with the acoustic guitar and although I thought it was beautiful, I just didn’t get the feeling that it fit very well into the album, It was missing something and I think what it was missing was a bit of power and emphasis which is where The Bards came in, we met up in the studio in Indiana and played around with a couple of songs I had written and when we played this one together it was a pretty magical moment for me, I’ve followed these guys careers since I can remember, my parents were pretty big fans and that was sort of passed down to me I guess and when we did this song together it just fit perfectly and it gave it that power that I felt it was missing, It was a truly amazing moment for me to hear it for the first time and I was just in a sort of state of disbelief really, it was a truly incredible moment.
When I first spoke to the guys about becoming lead singer they made it clear that they wanted this new stage of their career to be different, they said they wanted me to take control from the beginning in terms of Songwriting and they’ve given me the opportunity and freedom to create something special, they’re still hugely involved and we’re writing songs together but they made it clear that they wanted me to sort of take the reigns with the band and just sort of see where things go with it, I know the challenge is pretty huge having followed the band since I first heard them when I was a kid and I know it’s gonna be pretty tricky to build upon the work they’ve created in the past but I’m positive about what we can do, I think we can create something really special here and make something that can really stand up against the bands previous work and I’m looking forward to the challenge, it’s gonna be an amazing journey and I think I can do this.”
- Brandon Caulfield


Lyric Preview

“Lonely And Bitter
Fragile And Broken
Your Words Are Final
Now That You’ve Spoken
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And I’ll Sing To You … My Sweetheart
But I’m Not The Man I Was, When I Wrote This Song
So I’m Gonna Need You To Help Me, To Sing Along
And I’ll Sing To You … My Sweetheart
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And You Know You Quench My Thirst
If Only For A Little While
Because Elizabeth
You Make Me Smile.
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But This Time It Will Be Different For Us, You’ll See
Because Your Beauty Has Been Haunting Me
And When You Smile, The World Crumbles To The Ground
But That‘s Ok, Because Your Still Around.”

Personnel

Brandon Caulfield - Vocals, Piano, Guitar, Songwriting
J.R Rhythm - Guitar
Moe Z - Bassist
T. Tome - Drums
Jax - Keyboards, Synths, World Instruments