Ronnie DayThe Militia Group

To say that Ronnie Day is an overachiever would be a major understatement. Eighteen years old with a record deal in hand and a 16-track debut, Ronnie is already being hailed as one of today\'s most promising singer-songwriters. Of course, his musical ambition started much earlier. Even before the Redwood City, CA native graduated kindergarten, Ronnie was trying his hand at song-writing and winning contests for it. \"I got first place in a school district contest, but I think I was the only submission,\" he says matter-of-factly. After studying the violin in grade school, Ronnie switched to guitar and started a garage band. \"It wasn\'t anything that serious,\" he defends, \"but that\'s when I really started writing songs.\" By the time Ronnie turned 16, he was a kid with a plan: quit school, play guitar, teach music to make money, write more songs. After locking himself in a room for the better part of 2 months, during which he taught himself how to record out of a book and financed what would become the first pressing of his forthcoming album, The Album, he had a following. \"I starting marketing myself the only way I knew how - online,\" says Ronnie, who remembers having to scrounge up change for the 1000th copy of his self-released CD. \"I started reading up on promotion and buzz marketing; I learned HTML and Java and used that knowledge to start selling CDs. Then once I sold enough CDs to fund a tour, I borrowed my mom\'s car and hit the road and all these kids from MySpace would be there at the shows.\" What was attracting these scores of teenagers were Ronnie\'s painstakingly honest tales of love and heartache. And with melodies that hinted of Jackson Browne and Bright Eyes, it didn?t take long before record companies started taking notice that something was catching on. Sure, everyone likes a good break-up song, but for Ronnie, his mission was to make the ultimate break-up album, inspired by a girl who cheated on him after which he would never be the same. \"I wanted the world to know that Jamie broke my heart,\" he says, \"so I started building this concept record.\" Like the arc of a relationship, listeners can feel the highs and lows of a courtship that\'s crumbling. From the unbridled optimism of \"Half Moon Bay\" and \"November Storm\" to the contemplative \"Written at a Rest Stop\" and the confrontational \"Outside,\" Ronnie\'s roller-coaster emotions are there for all to experience. \"When I started recording, the sessions were naturally love songs about Jamie,\" he explains of his time in the studio with American Hi-Fi\'s Stacy Jones. \"Then I went home to visit her one night and was sitting outside of her house in the freezing cold when she pulled up with this guy. I wasn\'t angry, I was just insane and the rest of the story unrolled into this album.\" To that end, Ronnie invites any and all listeners to commiserate. \"I tell this story every night and the kids get it,\" he says. \"The album makes sense.\" And to paint an even clearer picture, Ronnie has incorporated a series of \"inserts\" in between key tracks. \"It\'s like I wanted to explain how I got from \'Living for Love\' to \'Waiting at a Rest Stop.\' Well, I got in a car and drove so that\'s what the engine starting sound is about. Then there\'s the poem I wrote as the break-up drove me to insanity, it comes between \'Outside\' and \'Heroes Die.\'\" As a whole, The Album is certainly the soundtrack to a pivotal year of Ronnie\'s life, its lyrics as raw as the morning-after pain he felt as his first real love walked out of his life. But it?s also a journey of self-discovery for a guy who truly set off on his own. \"I didn\'t really know who I was,\" says Ronnie. \"I mean, my last name isn\'t really Day, I actually allowed my friends on MySpace to choose it for me. I immediately began to look at who this person was and wanted everyone to look at my life but not knowing exactly what I wanted them to see ? but that?s where my music takes over.\" But one thing Ronnie was absolutely sure of was, \"I wanted to be honest and not manufactured.\"

Links

• www.ronniedaymusic.com www.myspace.com/ronnieday www.themilitiagroup.com