I tend to get myself involved in a lot of musical projects.  My plate is always full when it comes to music… perhaps too full sometimes… but I would never have it any other way.  I’ve been in several bands over the years, and I’ll probably talk about them at some point since I really learned very different stuff about writing music from each one.  I’ve also done a lot of temporary projects… recording with friends, helping to write a song here and there, being my dad’s studio band for songs he’s written,  arranging and performing songs for my church, as well as the countless things I’ve gotten into by myself over the years.  Musically I am all over the place, and because of that I’ll probably use a lot of my stuff as examples in this blog.

Today, though, I just wanted to mention my current songwriting team:  Blair-Hannah-Payne, or BHP as we tend to call ourselves more often.

I don’t really call us a “band”, because we don’t perform, and there are only three of us (who all take on multiple roles).  BHP is made up of James Blair, me (Jason Hannah), and Casey J. Payne.  The three of us were in a band together called Force That Binds from the very end of 1999 until September of 2001.  During that time, the three of us were the songwriting core of the band.  We wrote a total of about 20 songs during that time.  Although I had dreams of being a “rock star”, songwriting was really what drove the three of us.  We would often get together outside of band practice just to trade our new ideas.

After those days together, Jim and I stayed in bands together for another couple of years.  Even after our bands folded, though, we kept writing together, doing things called “Audio Challenges” to keep us being creative.  (Audio Challenges will eventually be a part of this blog, once the number of readers gets high enough).  Audio Challenges were when we would set up a set of rules for a song, give each other a time limit, and we’d each try to be as creative as possible while we made a song that followed those rules.

After a while, though, we ended up getting back into contact with Casey.  The three of us decided to do some writing together, and as of February of 2009 we decided to make it a permanent group.

Our first complete project together was the 2009 RPM Challenge.  Just a side note:  To anyone reading this that is interested in pushing themselves musically, take part in the next RPM Challenge this coming February.  You are supposed to write and record an album from scratch, and all the work (ideas and everything) have to happen in February.  It’s not a contest, and you won’t win anything, but if you complete it, you’ll have something you can be proud of.

After the RPM, we decided to keep pushing forward with our writing, and have since completed another album as well as a 3 song EP.

BHP, a lot like me personally, is all over the place musically.  We don’t really define ourselves within a genre, which is easy for us since we’re not trying to be a performing band, and we don’t really have to consider what an audience would be interested in.

You can check out all the songs we did for the RPM Challenge (the album name was Fallen They Be), as well as our second full length (The Door), and our EP (Gardens of Tomorrow) at AloneTone.  Go to http://alonetone.com/BHP/ to hear all of it.

Then drop me a comment to let me know what you think!

Related posts:

1. Audio Challenges
2. The RPM Challenge
3. My Projects: Completed RPM Challenge
4. My Halloween Album