Nashville's Brightest, Vol. 1

Nashville rocker Jonathan Bright has been kicking around the Music City for damn near 20 years now, both as a member of beloved local bands like Swing and Vagantis and, more recently, as a solo artist kicking out some great tunes. Jonathan pursues a genuine '70s-styled BIG rock sound with lots of guitars and riffs like Van Halen and fat melodies like Cheap Trick, i.e. he's not ashamed to play guitar-driven hard rock the way that it was meant to be played, with intelligent lyrics and solid strong structure.

Bright's six-song EP Radio Free Tennessee kicks off with the twisted rocker "Tweaking The Fine Tune" (see video below) and rapidly runs through five other unabashedly rocking songs like "Shine," "Turn Me On" and "Paralyzed." Jonathan has been doing some very cool things with video these days, as well, including this tantalizing clip for his version of Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" (I love the "audience" sitting on the couch in the basement) that's "based on a true story," and this hilarious clip for "The ABC Song" displays Bright's wit and humor and is about as twangy as you'll hear him get.

Jonathan's new band, Defense Wins Championships, rocks even harder than his solo stuff, if that's possible, mixing highly-amped six-string riffage with prog-styled instrumental flights of fancy to achieve a truly HEAVY throwback sound. This video for "Counting" by the newly-minted band reminds me a lot of the underrated music that was released from 1968-1972, a blues-based garage-rock derivative that incorporates elements of psychedelica and the proto-metal aesthetic that was being defined by bands like Dust, Buffalo and Sir Lord Baltimore.

Check out Jonathan Bright for yourself and I think that you'll agree that this rock & roll talent is one of "Nashville's Brightest" (no pun intended)....

Jonathan Bright "Tweaking The Fine Tune"


Jonathan Bright "Hot For Teacher"


Jonathan Bright "The ABC Song"


Defense Wins Championships "Counting"


Click on the CD cover to buy a copy of Radio Free Tennessee from CD Baby