BONFIREMUSIC

Article from "Casa Roble High School"
Released: March 11, 2005

It started as just a group of friends hanging out, listening to music, having a good time. What became of them is a band that has a lot of people talking, tuning their ears to the music streaming off the internet, and wondering who these guys are, and why they aren’t famous yet. They call themselves Bonfire, a name that fits them just right, because that’s the type of mood their music puts you in, just as if you were having a good time on the beach sitting around one.

Three of the four members are casa graduates, and the other is longtime friend of Bryan Nichols, who is the lead singer and guitar player of the band. “I met Keith at Laguna Creek High School. He was a junior and I was a freshman. We were best friends for a long time.We were in separate bands at the time though. I met David and Tyner when I came to Casa my senior year, David didn't play guitar when I first met him...but he started playing when we started hanging out, he picked it up pretty fast,” recalls Nichols, who brings along a good amount of musical experience, having played the guitar since the 5th grade. He is backed up by David Breisacher who also plays guitar, helps out with vocals, and jams occasionally on the congas, giving the band a more distinctive sound. Ryan Tyner adds some smooth bass, while Keith Deering jams away on the drums. Their sound is exceptional, a mix of surf rock with nice acoustic riffs and progressions, held together by lyrics that are sometimes romantic, sometimes heartbreaking, but mostly, just plain “chill.”

With influences from bands like Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds, G-Love and Special Sauce, and Ben Harper, Bonfire has taken the first step to gaining fame like those bands by releasing their first CD. After much anticipation by loyal fans all across the Sacramento area, “The Livin’s Easy,” a solid debut album containing 7 of the songs the band has already perfected, was released to the public on February 25th. When asked about the recording experience, the band seemed very satisfied. “It was really fun. As tiring and time consuming as it is, it's addicting at the same time. We had some really long nights. One night we recorded until like 6:00am. And the last night we finished it at about 4:30am. It was really fun though, we took the long board all around through the hallways, so we had a good time. We're stoked for the outcome, and hopefully there will be many more CD’s in the future,” said Nichols. The CD has some really great tracks on it, like the title track “Livin’s Easy,” “Lucky,” “My Little Cousin,” and the fan favorite love song “Caught In a Net.” Each song has its own feel to it, which shows how well the band can collaborate together and take a little chunk of something and turn it into their next big hit. “Either David or I will come up with an idea, then we’ll call one another and say ‘come over, I’m working on this song,’ and then we’ll kind of write it together. All the songs start out just acoustic, then we bring them to the full band and figure stuff out,” says Nichols. Watching them put on the live show really seals the deal, you can see that the band loves playing together and just doing their thing. A lot of fans have been wondering what the band’s favorite songs are. Bryan has an answer for that too. “We try to rock out to ‘Lucky.’ ‘Santa Cruz’ is a fun mellow one as well, but that one didn’t make the CD.” Of course, these guys have to find time to have some fun, otherwise they would go insane and stop what they’re doing. “We long board a lot. And we play hacky sack, almost every time we practice or have a show, we'll have a big hacky sack tournament. We call it the ‘hacky sack championship of the world’ and it gets intense. We've all taken our share of kicks to the head and other parts (laughs).”