‘Pringles Xtreme’ tour

The "Pringles Xtreme Campus Tour" began its journey with Lights Resolve, who headlined at its first stop at the University of Toledo last night to a modestly sized crowd.

"We got approached by the Pringles Xtreme campus tour to do some of these headlining dates," said Matt Reich, vocalist and guitarist. "We're like yeah, we'll do it; give us money, we'll do it."

The tour will feature a variety of bands as it visits other campuses around the country. One of the bands included in the lineup is We The Kings, who recently visited UT, and J. Cole, the newest prodigy of acclaimed recording artist Jay-Z.

"They've been cool with hooking us up with a bunch of these shows and we're trying to get in front of a new audience," Reich said. "Our audience is a college audience so it should work out well, hopefully, if people show up."

Unfortunately, not many were in attendance. The sparse crowd, while mildly enthusiastic, was nowhere near what the band deserved.

Though they have not performed in Toledo before, Lights Resolve has played in other prominent Ohio cities like Columbus and Cleveland. "There have been definitely a few amazing shows in Ohio," Reich said.

"I remember one specifically - it was in Columbus, it was a big place. I think we were on tour with The Used at that point and it was a really cool show," Reich recalled. "I just remember having a sick time because Ohio, you don't have anything to do here, so everybody is stoked when someone comes to town. No one understands when you live in New York, everybody is so… they're like ‘Oh, okay, somebody's playing a show, whatever,' and they'll stand there and they'll be there…'cause they've seen it all and there's always something to do like 24 hours a day, you could do whatever… you want to do. In Ohio… it's a little different."

Since the band's formation in 2006, they have focused on being able to play live as a three-piece unit.

"You can hear every note by every person, so it's like if anybody [messed] up, you're [out of luck]. So we had to get that down and that took us a couple of years, but then we started getting good tour opportunities," Reich said.

"I think being a three-piece is the most challenging thing that a band can do these days because you're competing against some bands that have like eight people in it and they have an iPod going," Reich said. "All this [stuff] is going on and we're just three, and we kinda play [stuff] really raw, so I think to me it's still accessible for a bunch of people."

"But I think that the dynamic of three people is important to this band and has been since we started it," Reich said. "Something about honesty in the music coming across with three people just playing it as is and staying raw."

For their debut album, Lights Resolve worked with Mike Sapone, who also produced many of Brand New's records as well as other New York bands. The album, titled "Feel You're Different," is due to be released in 2011.

The band has just finished recording their first complete record, which is "good timing for the band," according to Reich, since it is following the success of a song released on the Rock Band video game and a number of tours with big name bands like The Used, Panic! at the Disco and Dashboard Confessional.

"We had other opportunities come our way before, like the Rock Band thing… it was like the number six downloaded song of 2009, so we had a lot of momentum; and now with this record, this is our first real record and we're stoked," Reich said.

"I think a bunch of the stuff we've done before this, on the EP's we put out, we didn't care much about the recording. We kind of had a song and put it down on tape. With this one we wanted it to be right and raw and just kind of how our live show is, however trite that sounds," Reich said.

"The CD is more aggressive. It's kind of a 90's alternative record," Reich said. "If you look through your 1990's CD or tape collection you'll probably find it there, except obviously an updated version because we're in 2010 right now, but it definitely lives in that 90's era of music, which I'm stoked about because that's what I kind of grew up on."

Reich said that though the band's newest music is more aggressive than previous songs, it is still accessible for any audience.

The band will release "teaser videos" in anticipation of their upcoming album release and a live video of one of their tracks has already been shot.

The video was directed by Justin Beck from Glass Jaw and according to Reich, "We just did a live shot like static, trying to bring it back to basics, recorded on a four track cassette player…it's raw and dirty and raunchy and that's on our website right now at LightsResolve.com."

Reich also indicated that proper videos will be filmed once they have an official release date and a label to put it out under.

For more information on Lights Resolve, visit LightsResolve.com or their MySpace page at MySpace.com/LightsResolve. More information on the Pringles Xtreme tour can be found at LateNightRepublic.com/CampusTour.