June 8, 2000

Up Next Entertainment Guide

Turn It Up
by Dana Drazenovich
Times staff writer

gb Leighton hits town

Twin Cities-based band plans to release new CD at end of August

They’re set to do a two-week tour with Jonny Lang, they just got done opening for Tracy Byrd, Insane Clown Posse and Indigenous, and they have a new CD due out in August.

But first, Brian Leighton and the rest of gb Leighton will stop Saturday in St Cloud to rock the Red Carpet Nightclub when the band headlines what is sure to be another super-charged show. 

Twin Cities-based gb Leighton plans to have its new CD, the band’s first full-length studio album since 1996’s Come Alive, out by the end of August.  The yet-unnamed CD will include 12 new original songs.  The CD follows up gb Leighton’s highly successful Live From Pickle Park, which captured the energy and intensity of the band’s legendary live performances. 

Lead singer Leighton said the Red Carpet crowd can expect to hear some cuts off the new CD. 

“Well, we have some songs right now that we play live that people are waiting for – ‘The Most Important Night Of My Life’ and I think one called ‘Running Back’ will be good,” he said.

“These two are pretty rock solid rock songs.”

In fact, a lot of the CD is pretty rocked. 

“We’re trying to rock this one up a little bit more, a little heavier on the guitars.  We’re trying to make it sound a little more rock than maybe country,” Leighton said.  “Country’s kind of in my blood, anyway, in my influences.  When I write I tend to write with a little more country flavor, so we tried to rock them up.” 

The CD is produced by Jim Gaines, who produced a big part of Santana’s blockbuster Supernatural release.   Leighton is really happy with the results. 

“I kind of like it because it’s kind of a good listening album.  There’s nothing too political, nothing to make you feel bad.  It’s just going to make you smile,”  he said.

“The way I put this one together was almost feel.  I had these songs, and these, grouped, seemed to go together.”

"Because it’s a studio album, as opposed to a live recording, fans can expect to hear some differences between the recorded and live versions of the songs."  The music on the CD will be more like what was in his head when he wrote it, Leighton said. 

“I think that people are going to hear some of the stuff and go ‘Why doesn’t it sound like it sounded every night I heard it in the bar?’  but when you’re in the studio, the studio’s a unique process for the musicians because we get to put stuff down that we maybe wouldn’t do live.”

After all, the mark of a good band, as any music fan knows, is a good live performance that gives songs a life of their own, and super-charged shows are and always have been gb Leighton’s trademark. 

gb Leighton’s CDs are available at Electric Fetus and Best Buy.  Online, go to www.gbleighton.com.