John Common and Blinding Flashes of Light

After nearly quitting music, John Common made the best record of his life with his new band, Blinding Flashes of Light. John Common released Beautiful Empty last year locally in Denver, the city he has called home for the past 12 years.

Encouraged by passionate fan response and critical acclaim from the Denver music press, John and his band decided to release the album nationally, securing a distribution deal through Sony’s RED independent distribution arm.

John says, like his music, he is pretty much an open book. John was in his first high school band in Florida. It was cowpunk combo called Bunkhouse Jones. After college, music took a backseat to corporate job that he abandoned after three years for life on the road a la Kerouac, a journey which took him from Vermont to Kansas, where he disassembled an old farmhouse one board at a time.

Eventually, Common landed in Denver, where he fronted the alt-country combo Rainville and released a pair of well-received solo albums: 2006’s Good To Be Born and 2007’s Why Birds Fly. By 2007, his creativity was tapped and Common wondered if it was time to just call it a career.

John considers "Empty" his best work yet. The idea of taking a quieter approach, one that didn't require distortion, ended up reigniting Common's passion. Before retooling his sound, he set about looking for kindred spirits, and the first one he found was Jess DeNicola, a stunning vocalist who's performed with several local acts.

Common and DeNicola met near the end of 2007, when Common had just finished playing a show. Common was loading out, mentally already in Prague, where he was planning to travel in a few days, when DeNicola struck up a conversation outside the bar. The two made plans to get together when Common returned from Europe.

Jimmy Stofer (bass, vocals) also joined Common and DeNicola. Common handpicked the rest of the members: first Wes Michaels [cello, saxophones, mandolin], then Carl Sorenson [drums, percussion] and, finally, Jon Wirtz [Rhodes, piano organ, glockenspiel]. Common asked each member to create intensity with emotion rather than volume and to leave space for one another in the arrangements.

From the songs to the sound to the album art and the promotional photos, Common clearly put a great deal of thought into every aspect of this project, which he readily admits.

To learn more about the band, please visit http://johncommon.com/ .