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Run By: Brittany
Since: March 2005

Wisemen Promotions Article

Five years ago, Mosley started playing music with drummer James Culpepper. The two joined up with Bhattacharya and Hartmann, who were in a local band that had just split up. "Our first practice together was awesome," Mosley says. "We all had different influences that were all blending together with the same passionate heart, and that brought out this beautiful feeling. It was magical.” Bassist Pat Seals joined in 2002. Come early 2005 the band's self-titled debut EP - produced by Rick Parasher (Pearl Jam, Blind Melon) and Brad Cook (Foo Fighters) - was released and was supported on tour with Saliva, Breaking Benjamin, 3 Doors Down, STAIND and Trust Company. To launch the LP, Flyleaf is touring with Cold, STAIND, POD and Taproot. In spring 2005, Flyleaf recorded their full-length debut with acclaimed producer Howard Benson, who has previously worked with My Chemical Romance, POD and All American Rejects. "A flyleaf is the blank page at the front of a book," explains Mosley of their moniker. "It's the dedication page, the place you write a message to someone you're giving a book to. And, that's kind of what our songs are- personal messages that provide a few moments of clarity before the story begins. If people can know that they’re not alone and recognize the hurt, they can hear our music as a means of hope and eventually taste real love. We want Flyleaf to be a relevant, spiritual quest to seeking truth and finding God.”

Musically
Every once in awhile I get a cd or a request for a review of a band that I am not very familiar with. I started getting requests for Flyleaf and I made the contact to get a cd sent and an interview set up. I get the cd and didn't know what to expect. This is an album that is actually paving the way for originality and a band that is willing to take chances! The very first song, "I'm So Sick," is full of guts with hard driving guitar riffs and pounding bass lines that make the content just hard enough to bridge the gap between the hardcore fans and even the radio rock fans. HM Magazine said it best, "think the Cranberries on acid meets a velociraptor..." The album has an amazing blend of melodic tones and rhythms mixed with hard edges and roughness. We haven't even go to the incredible vocals yet! "Perfect" for example, slows the pace down with a great melodic melody and quickly speeds the track up during the chorus. "Cassie" jumps as back into a harder intro that gave me a flash back of The Benjamin Gate. Most of these songs are radio friendly and even set at a modest 3 minutes each. Most of the time if I mention the radio stations in a review that is negative. Flyleaf, on the other hand, will hold you if you hear them on the stations. Many of the tracks have an amazing blend of old school punk rhythms with a great deal of grit that was reminiscent of grunge. Songs like "All Around Me" quickly take those emotions and encapsulate them in a melodic rhythm that yes, at times, will remind you of Evanescence.

Lyrically/Vocally
Lyrically is another area that sets this band ahead of the pack. Their bio says this, "I used to be in a really negative band, and that seemed to almost fuel my emptiness because that's what the songs were about," says charismatic singer Lacey Mosley. "That's why I think what we're doing is important because there needs to be something heavy out there that has a positive message so people see that it's possible to get through the worst situations." Flyleaf's self-titled debut album echoes with songs about abuse, neglect, addiction, dysfunction and messages about overcoming adversity. (bio) That positive stance and a willingness to take difficult subjects head on is what makes this band so truthful. The band tells you the problems but they also tell you how to fix theme and that is with themes of hope. A great quality is the ability to be real and share a message of true salvation. Vocally, wow, this is the heart of this band. Take the vocals of Lacey Mosley away and you have taken the Arch out of St. Louis. She has an insane intensity during the harder edged songs mixed with deepened roughness and backing screams. She also has amazing pitch and direction which take her all over the board when diving into melodic overtones. Her voice is captivating and relaxing.

Flyleaf will do one thing for you, stir emotion. From the music to the lyrics to the vocals, this album is absolutely amazing!

I don't typically do this but I felt this would be a rip off if I didn't include the story about Lacey in the bio:
“One of the record’s theme is about God saving me,” Mosley reveals. “If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here. The struggles that I went through are what the Bible says produces perseverance, strength and character. I wouldn’t take back any of my past because it’s exactly what brought me to this point.”

Yet Flyleaf's infectiously heavy emotional and spiritual surrender is all the more surprising considering Mosley's struggles while growing up. "My mom was a young single mother of six," she continues. "We didn't have money and things were hard for all of us. We moved whenever we couldn't make ends meet in one place, and that happened pretty often so there was a lot of struggling, suffering and character building. There was nothing constant in my life, and nothing to believe in. I got into some really bad stuff that I thought would make me feel more loved, or maybe just numb, but it cost me everything that was important to me, and literally almost took my life."

After turning to a life of drug use and rebellion, Mosley found continued frustration with her relationships at home and school. She decided suicide was the only option and had actually staged a method to take her life. However, one particular moment of meltdown became the very catalyst for which she’d turn her life around.

“I had a nervous breakdown at 16, planned to kill myself the next day and cut all my hair off,” she remembers. “My grandma took one look at me, got very angry and we had a big fight. She was telling me I needed to go to church, and I agreed just so she would stop yelling. I still planned on killing myself the next day.”

Sunday just so happened to be the next day, and as promised, church was on the agenda. It was in that setting where Mosley felt the glow of God for the first time, but felt as though the preacher was speaking directly to her, despite the two never having met.

“The preacher came on and started talking about experiences he’d come across in ministering, and it kind of described my whole life,” she admits. “I was shocked, but then he started talking about how Jesus died so he could take our pain away, forgive us from our sins and set us free. He started crying at one point and said he felt a suicidal spirit in the room, I felt like he was talking to me again. It made me want to turn away, but he said “God wants to take your pain away.’”

Mosley’s resistance walls began to melt. When church was dismissed, a fellow prisoner pulled her aside and told Mosley that she could find comfort in her heavenly father despite her earthy father never being around.

“I never knew my dad, but this really did catch my attention because this man at the church didn’t know me!,” she says with shock. “And the more he kept saying about pain, the more my heart broke into a million pieces. Finally when I was more desperate than I’d ever been, he asked if I wanted to pray, and I said ‘yes.’ I had my head in my hands, and he prayed for God’s peace to come over me. Jesus saved me, and it was the most awesome freedom I’ve ever known.”

When you take a dive, sometimes you have to hit the bottom before you can swim your way back to the top. For Mosley, writing songs about survival helped her reach the surface and breathe again. "I had to lose everything to look up and see that there is a truly constant hope of a happy,” she says. "If my music helps one person, than it's worth having been through what I've experienced." * Source: Wisemen Promotions.