Challenge the Light – 1989 – 8 Track Sessions
From 1985 to 1990, I played in a rock band. Although we went through multiple personnel changes through those years, the nucleus of the band remained vocalist Ed Snyder, drummer Ernie Woody, and myself on keyboards.
We were originally called Breathe, but once the MOR band Breathe hit the scene in 1987, A&M records told us we had to change our band name. We then became Challenge the Light.
I wrote a blog post in October of 2018 about my late friend/guitarist Glen Suneson and the early days of Breathe. You can check it out here.
In 1988, we released our album She Comes to Seek Her Soul.
Shortly after the album was released, Ernie, Ed and I put together a new version of the band with guitarist Ron Rueles and bassist Steve Vilnius. By this point in time, our sound had evolved into a broader range of influences – slightly less dreamy – slightly more “dancey” – than our original band sound. I remember we were listening to a lot of Love & Rockets, The Cure, Depeche Mode, 808 State, Jesus Jones, The Stone Roses, Peter Gabriel, and David Bowie.
The band with Ron and Steve ended up being our final lineup. For whatever reason, this iteration of the band seemed to have the best level of camaraderie, and the lowest level of interpersonal tension. We had SO much fun together!
About a year after the release of our album, Ernie obtained a TEAC reel to reel 8 track deck, so we decided to record a couple of tunes on his new rig. We had worked up a cover of Sly Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”. Ed radically revamped the lyrics and we made the song our own. Just prior to this, our manager Cheryl Henning encouraged us to transform some older pop song, and after trying a few other tunes, we settled on “Thank You”. It remains the only cover that our band ever recorded. We also recorded an original called “Eternally” which was co-written by Ernie and Ed. During this period we were all heavily into The Cure’s Disintegration album. This song has a bit of that vibe!
While we were working on this project, Ron was videoing the sessions, and put together a sort of “home movie” of the process. He edited together a nice little montage to accompany the two songs we recorded. The project was recorded entirely at Ernie’s home studio which was also the rehearsal space for the band during the entirety of our existence. Ron’s video features shots of us working on the project, loading my van for a gig, and generally just hanging out. In addition to the band members, there are shots of recording engineer Wes Patterson (who also worked on She Comes to Seek Her Soul) and our band manager Cheryl. This project lived for many years on an old VHS tape in the back of my closet. I finally got around to digitizing it, and am so happy to share it now! Watching this brings me right back to a special formative time in my life of making music with friends!