frontman friday: nate ruess

this week has been a very good week. there were warm temperatures, the complete line-up for the compadres tour was announced and it makes my insides so unbelievably happy, and yesterday i went shopping at the buy-the-pound salvation army which is basically my version retail therapy on steroids.

and now i get to dish about one of my favorite things, a man in a band.

today's de' jour: nate ruess

stole this picture straight from wikipedia...the source of all things true.

nate is the vocals behind: fun.

anyone with roommates knows the "share the bathroom mirror" 

game all too well. 

these fellas BLEW UP in 2012. you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing one of their songs. they were everywhere. this is the song that catapulted them to the top. 

i wrote a blog about a song of theirs that makes me sad. it makes me think and makes me wish i could make it better. it's one of those songs that i think are important for Christians to hear. i don't think he wrote it for Christians but i think we need to be the ones to hear it. maybe it will change us. you can read it here if you'd like. or don't. choice is yours. 

and to end on a lighter note, nate did this song with pink and it's one of my favorite duets. so absurdly good. 

ahhhh, the weekend.

xo

i never say this but...

i can't even.

switchfoot was just named as the 5th band on the compadres tour.

remember how less than a week ago i wrote about how killer the line-up already was and how i hoped that switchfoot was going to be the final band? remember? REMEMBER?

well it happened. switchfoot is on the tour.

unfortunately there are 2 legs of the tour; ben rector doing the first leg and then switchfoot taking ben's place for the second leg of the tour. so each show will have 4 acts, not 5.

stolen from needtobreathe's twitter.

but maybe that just means i will have to go to a show on each leg so i get to see them all.

does that make me a modern day dead head?

xo

cat with heart eyes emoji.

this picture popped up in my newsfeed this weekend and the only reaction i can muster is the cat with heart eyes emoji. these are my two favorite phils. in one picture. TOGETHER. BEING FRIENDS.

i most definitely stole this from philip zach's facebook.

so much perfect teeth and hair in this picture. 

my obsession with the phil on the left dates back to when i was 12 years old. it was the late 90's and he was my first "celebrity" crush. all of my friends were in love with devon sawa or jonathan taylor thomas but not me. nope, i loved the bassist with the new zealand accent and enviable hair. 

my crush on the phil on the right goes back to college. saw him play a show and was hooked. he also played bass and when i found out his name was phil i was sure it was a sign from God, i was destined to love him. 

i talked about both of them enough that when my friend made me cookies with all my favorite band boys' pictures on them for my birthday a couple of years back each of their pretty faces graced a cookie. 

i must say, i think both of them have gotten better with age ;)

xo

frontman friday: paused

i know, normally i gush over a frontman today but there have been announcements over the last couple of days and i just can't wait to write a blog post about it any longer. there is still another to be added to the docket but my patience has run out so i am foregoing frontman friday for just one week to talk about a tour that is hitting the road later this year.

needtobreathe has been sending out boxes inviting some of their friends (and some of my favorites) out on tour with them, these friends have been making video announcements to accept the call to participate in the comerades tour!

it is going to be so good. 

first colony house said they were in.

then drew holcomb & the neighbors jumped on the bandwagon.

and just this morning ben rector joined in.

my heart, you guys. i think my heart might explode.

is it too much to ask that switchfoot be the 5th band on the bill? i guess i'll have to wait and see. i swear to you, if this tour isn't coming through my city i will be driving to the closest (or most convenient) venue because there is no way on God's pretty green earth i am missing this show.

seriously, listen to all of these songs and then tell me that this show isn't going to be phenomenal.

i honestly don't know that i will sleep that well tonight waiting to hear who the final act will be. i know this sounds like a gross over-exaggeration but it's not. I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS.

i also have hot tub club this weekend (yep, it's a club where my friends and i sit in a hot tub, play games, and eat snacks...we're the coolest) so i'm pretty jazzed on that too. 

may your weekend be filled with all the good things. 

xo

frontman friday: charles kelley

somehow we are already halfway through january, which is the worst month in my opinion so i'm pretty much okay with this. we made it through a week of sinks-into-your-bones-cold and the past couple of days we've slowly been clawing our way out. and we are supposedly going to be rewarded with temperatures above freezing this weekend...yes, i am very okay with the fact that it's friday and we're halfway through january.

today's frontman is from the south so he doesn't know the cold like us hearty minnesotans...

he hails from georgia: charles kelley

he's got some swagger when he sings.

kelley is one of three in: lady antebellum 

they all play the lead singer at some point but he's definitely the most 

charming one on stage. boy's got charisma. 

fun fact: charles' brother is also a singer. he's pop singer, josh kelley. he's had a couple of singles amazing and only you and is married to actress katherine heigl. 

clearly good looks run in the kelley family.

charles writes songs for other artists and co-wrote one of my favorite parachute songs, kiss me slowly. i was going to put that here since he has a small cameo at the beginning of the video but i already put that up when gushing over will in parachute so instead i'm putting up a lady a song instead. which really makes sense since that's the band he's actually in. 

it's the most romantic sounding booty-call ever. 

now it's time to get out there and enjoy that warm (warm is really a relative term) weather! yay weekends!

xo

how the members of 1D were chosen.

simon cowell is a genius. i know i've said it before and i'll probably say it again because it's true. the man is brilliant. i really wish he'd try out a new hairstyle but that's a rabbit trail for a different day...

he wasn't just the mean judge (though you had to admit, he was always right) on american idol. he's produced other shows (america's got talent, the x factor, etc) and started his own record label. and he's basically the one to thank for the phenomenon known as 1Direction.

love them or hate them you have to admit they are one of the biggest things in music today. they sell out tours worldwide, are on every awards show and late night show, and have an entire store dedicated to them at the mall of america, they are a big deal.

here is my unfiltered and completely unfounded reasons why i think each of it's members were chosen to be a part of the world's most well-known boy band:

harry styles

he's got these gritty vocals, he's disarmingly handsome, and he carries himself like a rock star. let's just call a spade a spade here, he's the frontman. he is also my personal favorite of the 1D boys. #teamharry (yeah, sorry, that had to happen)

zayne malik

he's got the most effortless vocals of the five, so much so that he often looks bored while singing. pretty sure he is the group's bad boy. the fact that he looks like a model doesn't hurt either.

niall horan

he plays guitar occasionally so he's the resident "musician" of the bunch. he's the wide-eyed, impish, innocent one; the one that all the young girls pick. and he sports the thickest accent to really drive home the fact that they're international. 

liam payne

pretty sure on the last couple awards shows he was the only one to talk so clearly "spokesman" is his role. he can sing and he's handsome enough but he's not going to beat out other guys in the group in those categories so all signs point to him being the intellectual. 

louis tomlinson

the following is an actual conversation i had with my roommate:

me: how do you think louis got in 1direction? he's clearly the worst singer of the group.

her: the one that looks like the female gym teacher?

me: yeah.

her: boy bands with 5 members sell better. he's the 5th member.

so there you have it. 

now if someone's little sister has a copy of this is us could you please bring it to my house so i can finally watch it? mmmkaythanks.

xo

always gift the gift of needtobreathe.

tomorrow is my birthday.
i am not one of those girls who has to celebrate all week (or all month...why do people think they need to be celebrated FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH?), usually i don't even mention that it's my birthday because i think it's rather awkward.
but...
my roommate got me a killer gift and i just had to share. she ordered it and it came in early and she couldn't wait to give it to me because she knew i would love it.

i don't normally have an underbite.

look at that sweatshirt! yummmmmm.

isn't it fantastic?! it's the "ugly sweater" from needtobreathe except i don't think it's ugly at all. i luff it. it's got reindeer and says 'stay warm' across the bottom...which is no easy feat during a minnesota winter. she got it for me in an XL so i can wear it with leggings (because i basically live in leggings) and leg warmers and I AM THE COZIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD.

and since i know she reads my blog, thanks pal!
xo

frontman friday: ed sheeran

friday! it's here, you guys! woohoo!

maybe it's because it was a full week back at work after a glorious 11 days off...or maybe because i've been living in sub-zero, close-schools-because-it's-too-cold, your-lungs-freeze-when-you-breathe weather for the past 5 days...but this week seemed to take it's sweet time.

but we're to the weekend now and the temps are on the rise (they say we are supposed to hit 10 by tomorrow, double digits ABOVE zero, baby!) and i get to write about one of my favorite things. it's basically a julie andrews song up in here.

he's british like julie: ed sheeran

these pics were already together. 2-for-1. score.

photo credit: an ed sheeran fan site

he sings under his own name but often at shows he's his own band. he uses a loop pedal and tracks everything himself so he totally counts as a frontman. 

shut up, he does too count as a frontman.
photo credit: ed sheeran

if you flip through radio channels on the regular (guilty) you've probably heard multiple different singles of his being played on multiple different types of stations. he infuses spoken-word/rap into pop on some songs and then others are acoustic ballads (the kind that make you close your eyes and sway your head when you sing them). but no matter what style he's doing it always seems effortless.

how can you not fall in love? it's impossible. 

i've only had the privilege of seeing sheeran once live. it was at jingle ball 2 years ago. it was at the largest entertainment center in minnesota and i was in the second to last row. so yeah, it was pretty intimate.

don't waste your time, you can't see the stage at all in this pic.
he sang 'give me love' though so that's all that really matters.

oh ed, you are not my typical type when it comes to looks but your voice and your songwriting and your tattoos all add up to a pretty great package. now stop spending so much time with taylor swift and come be my friend. 

xo

no need to apologize.

i have already written a frontman friday post about ryan tedder and how i think he's pretty great but today i'm going to take a few minutes and really delve into how influential he is in pop music right now. his songs are EVERYWHERE.

he's the lead singer and primary songwriter for his own band, one republic; they were big about 10 years ago with their breakout single apologize (yes that was the ringtone on my razer flip-phone thanks for asking), they slid to the background for a couple of years, and have recently exploded onto the scene again with radio single after radio single. they are doing pretty well for themselves.

what you may not know is that he has written or co-written songs for numerous other artists. and they're the big songs, like the ones that get played every hour on top 40 radio. here are just a few of the well-known songs penned by mr. tedder:

rumor has it sung by adele

neon lights sung by demi lovato

halo sung by beyonce

burn sung by ellie goulding

bleeding love sung by leona lewis

ghost sung by ella henderson

he has also produced albums and/or songs for maroon 5, taylor swift, kelly clarkson, ariana grande, hillary duff, the backstreet boys, ludacris, natasha bedingfield, gavin degraw, james blunt, whitney houston, jennifer lopez, kelly clarkson and carrie underwood to name just a few. 

so let's just take a moment and appreciate the contribution ryan benjamin tedder has made to the music world. 

thanks ryan. you're a gem.

xo

"this is like a pathetic version of cribs."

one of my favorite bands seems to be on an indefinite hiatus right now.

i saw them for the first time in 2004 and fell in love with their particular style of rock 'n roll, their unkempt look and their funny little southern accents.
over the years i got to know them as people and found that they were fantastic human beings, not just fantastic rock stars.

we've:
played countless hours of mario kart.
done karaoke (which they killed, by the way).
hung out at the lake.
had bonfires.
talked at-length about fro yo.
gone to church together.

and they let me join them for a night at a small festival in a southern minnesota cornfield and play violin on one of their songs.

they are super rad dudes.

recently, a "lost episode" of them showing off their van for the digital tour bus was found. the video is from 4-5 years ago and it's hilarious. it's exactly who they are, no acting for the cameras or trying to put on some sort of cliche'd front, it's just them being them.

holy crap do i miss those fellas. 

xo

frontman friday: andrew hozier-byrne

it's friday! i forgot it was friday. i've been off of work for a week and half and it was the holidays and i was traveling to see my family and catching up with friends over happy hour and taco bell and frankly i don't hate it. gotta love weeks where you don't feel like you're living to get to friday.

and with friday comes some frontman lovin'. it's the most wonderful day of the week. 

he's new(ish) to the scene: andrew hozier-byrne

he sings under the name: hozier

his first single, take me to church, BLEW UP. it's huge. if you haven't heard it you apparently never listen to the radio. ever. 

so he's super handsome and has a great voice and to top it off he's from ireland. so add an irish accent to all of that and basically i wish i could just sit in a room and listen to him talk and sing and stare at him all day. 

here's to hoping that he isn't the one-hit-wonder of this past year. in a technological age there seems to be fewer and fewer artists that can hang on for more than just a single or two before the next artist comes along and takes over the web. rip gotye. 

xo