Color

Chris Cann – Vocals
Chad Salls – Bass
Dean Truitt – Lead Guitar
Van Robbins – Drums

“I don’t know what the day will bring/but I’m glad to be alive,” Chris Cann sings, while bassist Chad Salls and guitarist Dean Truit whirl like dervishes beside him and drummer Van Robbins rides the backbeat. It’s another night of Color onstage, delivering an uplifting sound that fuses guitar power and contemporary edge, soul-scorched vocals and irresistible melody. Unleashed in Austin, Texas, Color hit stage after stage refining their singular power. It’s a power that echoes the perennial promise of rock and roll, updated and torqued, but grounded faithfully in the art of the song. Songs that communicate. Songs that matter.

Are You With Me? encapsulates and expands upon that live energy. From the anthemic title cut that invites the listener in, to track after track of dynamic music, hook-filled and ear-grabbing, the album introduces a band of rare charisma and commitment. As the sound surges, Cann’s vocal command is that of a communicator capable of summoning even the most jaded clubgoers closer to the stage. Gifted with the immediacy of a classic lead singer, Cann is the vehicle for Color’s songs. He writes them with Salls, a distinctively melodic bass player, who first comes up with riffs and motifs on acoustic guitar or keyboard. Salls and Cann then turn the ideas over to Truitt and Robbins and the finished products reveal Color’s ensemble force.

It was this force that led the band to sign with multi-Grammy Award winning producer Matt Serletic (matchbox twenty, Santana, Aerosmith) and his newly formed Melisma Records. Color flew to Altanta to record the album with Serletic and co-producer Noel Golden. “When we went into the studio with Matt Serletic, we had no idea how far and how much he would push us,” says Truitt. “Matt gave us a new perspective when it came to realizing a song’s potential.”

“Alright,” “What Good Is It,” “Say Goodbye” and the rest of Are You With Me? reflect Color’s passion for driving, rhythmic assertiveness, and pop’s essential element, melody. It’s the sound of a band that has absorbed and transformed their influences. It’s big music, built to last. As Salls says, “We want to be a band people will listen to not just 20 minutes from now but 20 years from now.” And while, in range and ambition, it echoes the stadium-filling sounds the band grew up on, it’s intensely personal, the essence of its makers’ dreams and hopes. “We’re not following in anyone’s shadow,” insists Cann, “we’re casting our own.”

Formed in the late ’90s in the Lone Star State’s music hotspot of Austin, Color stood out from the crowd at the very start. Amidst the cowboy hats of neo-country outfits and the thriftstore gear of faceless alt-rockers, this band was different. From the moment they began gigging, they envisioned something bigger – rock and roll of genuine, outsized inspiration. Impatient with meandering blues jams or monotone angst, they aimed to recapture a spirit of musical adventure and unabashed drama. “In a way,” Truitt says of Color’s early days, “we were outcasts, but that made us so much stronger and we worked so much harder.”

The roots of that work go deep. Salls and Truitt, friends since their first day of kindergarten together in Houston, formed their first band at the tender age of 14. Different high schools and different musical tastes drew them apart for a while, (Salls was into Brit/new wave and Truitt into heavier rock), as did Sall’s move to Austin and Truitt’s to Los Angeles. In 1994, they reunited for a few years in the Austin band Seed, which received exposure on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and MTV’s 120 Minutes.

It was with Cann, however, that they found their true creative expression. Cann, Houston-born and San Antonio-raised, hit Austin after high school, eventually becoming the frontman for local favorites Mrs. Brown. After that band’s demise and a stint driving blues-rock guitarist Jimmie Vaughan’s truck on tour, Cann joined Color. Completing the line-up was Robbins, Amarillo-born drummer extraordinaire. Turning pro at 17, Robbins took to the road two years later with an all-black blues band. “I am inspired by Motown,” he says, “so I go for the groove – not fancy, but soulful as hell.”

It’s an apt description for the sound Color has developed. Soulful and skillful rock and roll with a pop sensibility, Are You With Me?, balances force and finesse. From Cann’s yearning vocals on the string-laden “Say Goodbye” to the way “Not the Same” begins as percussive thunder then swings into syncopation, and the funkified swagger of “Trick of the Light,” a portrait of a femme fatale “sitting cross-legged like Buddha did.” Even as Color unveils its debut, they aim to build on its promise. Committed to a life in music, Color continues to write, polish their approach, and test their mettle in live performance. “We love to perform live,” Truitt says, “we are inspired every night when we feel the energy of a new audience’s reaction.”

As fans pack Color’s live shows, they sense they are a part of something that is destined for greatness. Forged in the heat of the moment of rock and roll dreams and universal aspirations, Color is music whose time has come.