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After a seven-year hiatus, Waco band ColorBox released its first EP titled “Meet ColorBox” this fall.
The four-man group includes Sam Henderson and Brett Christenson, lecturers at Baylor, Stephen Bolech, an audiovisual digitization specialist at Baylor, and Clayton Faulkner, a Lutheran pastor in Houston.
“I think that’s something that’s interesting about our band – we all are members of the band, and we do something else outside of where you primarily see us playing,” Henderson said.
Henderson plays the keyboard, sings and writes most of the songs. Christenson plays the drums and, under the alias Broose Wain, creates the backing tracks. Bolech plays guitar and is the primary recordist. Faulkner sings and plays the bass.
“We would say it’s equal contributions, different areas,” Christenson said.
They started playing together in the early 2000s while they were students at Baylor. The founding members, Henderson and Bolech, started a worship band called Out of Silence. As their personal style developed, they changed the name to Bright Size Life. Years later, the band recreated itself into ColorBox.
Although they started out as a worship band, with each name change, the genre changed. As Bright Size Life, they were a jazz group. Now that they are ColorBox, they relate more with the rock genre.
Henderson said the new name does not mean anything. ColorBox was a nickname given to Bolech by Henderson’s daughter at the age of four.
“It is so hipster, even the band does not know what it means,” Christenson said jokingly.
Bolech said creating “Meet ColorBox” started by deciding which songs the band wanted to feature. An EP is a sample of an artist’s music that usually contains a few songs but is not long enough to be considered a full album.
“We picked our best five to do for this,” Bolech said. “We rehearse those as much as we can because time is money when you are in the studio so we need to be as efficient as possible.”
When recording their EP, they considered the current music market and distribution.
The band decided to release its EP for free.
“If you are under the age of 35, you realize that all music is free,” Christenson said. “This traditional method of creating an album, recording it and selling it to people did not seem to make sense since we are not selling it in the ’90s.”
They adapted to current music marketing standards by making the EP free in hopes of sharing it with as many people as possible.
“The theory behind that is that enough people would hear it, enjoy it and want to come to a show,” Christenson said.
As far as their plans for the future, Henderson said although they are not anticipating opening for bands as big as Coldplay, they are still satisfied with the work they have done.
“If you set your sights at being good, satisfying the band members and then sharing that goodness with as many people as possible, I think that is a good place to start,” Henderson said. “And it might be a good place to end.”
The band plays mostly local shows at places such as Common Grounds. Their next concert will be in November at True Love in downtown Waco, but the event’s details have not been confirmed.
“We have been playing and rehearsing for almost a year exactly,” Henderson said. “We played our first gigs in the spring of this year.”
