Band Website: www.ifightdragons.com

Manager: J.J. Italiano:  jj@steelgiant.net

Official Band Website: michaelmenertmusic.com

Manager: J.J. Italiano jj@steelgiant.net

Assistant Manager: Jace Cohen jace@steelgiant.net

Michal Menert was born in Kielce, Poland, in 1982, while the country was under communist rule. As a young child, he and his parents fled to the United States by way of West Germany, becoming political refugees. During his childhood, Michal’s father exposed him to a wide variety of Eastern and Western music, giving the boy fertile soil in which to plant his musical visions early on. Coming from a musical background of playing guitar, keyboards, and dabbling in a variety of other instruments gave Michal a unique approach to composing his own musical style. He co-produced the debut Pretty Lights album, “Taking Up Your Precious Time” and has collaborated with Derek Vincent Smith on a handful of tracks since then. Currently he is releasing a solo album, entitled “Dreaming of A Bigger Life” on prettylightsmusic.com. His sound combines samples from both Eastern European and Western vinyl with rich analog synthesis and organic, hard hitting beats. It is a fusion of yesterday’s elements and tomorrow’s dreams.

Official Artist Website: thebiggerlights.net

Manager: J.J. Italiano – jj@steelgiant.net

The Bigger Lights have one rule and one rule only – the music always comes first.

To them, it’s simple. You can send an artist to make a record with the hottest, most expensive producer on the market. You can dress them in the most fashionable clothes and give them the edgiest haircuts money can buy. You can market them on every website, every magazine, every radio station, and every television outlet at your disposal. But all else equal, there will never be a better sales pitch for any artist at the end of the day than having great songs and The Bigger Lights are a band committed practicing what they preach. With the 2010 release of their debut full length record on Doghouse Records, simply titled “The Bigger Lights,” one of pop music’s best kept secrets is arguably about to get the chance to begin preaching their message to a much larger audience.

Of course, this wasn’t an overnight revelation. It took two and half years of pursuing music full-time for The Bigger Lights to realize that one of the hardest parts of being career musicians is learning how to always put the music first. “It’s funny how when you start playing music, it’s easy to keep the focus in the right places since you’re only really doing it for yourself,” observes lead singer Topher Talley. “But the deeper you get into the business of being a band, the more pressure you start to feel when you look around at what general trends people seem to be reacting to, and that can a dangerous game.”

After forming in the summer of 2007 in Fairfax, Virginia, the band was quickly picked up by Absolute Management [All Time Low, Every Avenue, The Friday Nights Boys] and Doghouse Records/Warner Music Group [The All-American Rejects, The Get Up Kids, Say Anything] within their first year as a band. “When we made our first EP [Fiction Fever, 2008] for the label, we were still such a new band that we sort of self-imposed this vision of what we wanted to make based on what we thought a new band in our position had to do on their first record to grab people’s attention,” continues Talley. “We’re all proud of Fiction Fever for what it was when we made it, but none of us feel like it was the product of a group that had really figured out what it wanted be.” The result was a six-song rush of sugary, adrenaline laced pop-punk energy, perfect for a quick summertime pick-me-up. But in their hearts, group cofounders Talley, John Kendall Royston (guitar, piano, vocals), and Dan Mineart (bass, vocals) knew that they had to learn to embrace their own identity as songwriters and musicians rather than following suit with those around them if they wanted to create something more meaningful.

Entering the spring of 2009, The Bigger Lights began to do exactly that. After the departure of two of the band’s original members and five months of touring on acoustic remixes of tracks on Fiction Fever with bands such as Never Shout Never and The Honorary Title, the band finally completed it’s lineup with Ryan Seaman (drums) and Chris McPeters (guitar, vocals), both seasoned veterans of touring and songwriting. “All of a sudden, our band started to feel like the family it was always intended to be,” Talley says. “Chris and Ryan brought us a new level of confidence. We started playing better because we were having more fun and ultimately, I think that new found confidence is what gave us the guts to start lifting the musical restrictions we had been putting on ourselves.” The band proceeded to spend the summer writing songs as a newly completed quintet while on the road playing Bamboozle and touring with the likes of Hey Monday, This Providence, and The Secret Handshake before entering the studio to record with hometown producer and friend Paul Barber [My Favorite Highway, Steve Moakler].

The band’s self-discovery through confidence is clear and present on 2010’s self-titled full length. “We wanted to self title the record because we felt like this was the first batch of songs that really represented where the band is headed,” explains Talley. “The Bigger Lights” is a collection of radio ready pop-rock anthems, each with distinguishably diverse influences filling its own unique place on the album. “We realized that all of our favorite bands – bands like Queen, Aerosmith, Coldplay, or The All-American Rejects – they’ve all become our favorite bands precisely because they’ve made records that felt like real albums. They weren’t afraid to take chances or make art that was honest to who they are as people and artists,” Talley explains.

With a brand new record in hand and lessons learned in tow, The Bigger Lights are entering 2010 with a newly rejuvenated sense of hope and excitement and an even firmer dedication to their “music first, business second” mantra. “We completely understand the importance of all the pieces of the package being there. We get that things like marketing and image are important, but at the center of things like that will always be music itself, and we believe that great records will always come from putting everything else aside in the spirit of writing the best, most honest songs you’re capable of writing,” Talley says. “Those are the kind of records we want to make. That’s the kind of band we want to be.”

“The Bigger Lights” comes out March 23 on Doghouse Records/Warner Music Group.