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8in8 is a supergroup comprising
8in8 is a supergroup comprising Ben Folds
Benjamin Scott Folds (born September 12, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and composer, who is the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., since May 2017. Folds was ...
, Amanda Palmer
Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer (born April 30, 1976) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and performance artist who is the lead vocalist, pianist, and lyricist of the duo The Dresden Dolls. She performs as a solo artist and was also a ...
, Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gra ...
, and Damian Kulash
Damian Joseph Kulash Jr. (born October 7, 1975) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and music video director, best known for being the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band OK Go.
Early life and education
Kulash was born in ...
of OK Go
OK Go is an American rock band originally from Chicago, Illinois, now based in Los Angeles, California. The band is composed of Damian Kulash (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and vocals), Dan Konopka (drums and percussion), an ...
. In 2011 they gathered together with the intention of writing and recording eight songs in eight hours, hence the name "8in8". Aside from being friends, members of the group have various connections with each other: Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are married, and Ben Folds appeared on and produced Palmer's solo debut '' Who Killed Amanda Palmer''. The band have been referred to as a supergroup, acknowledging that moniker by describing themselves as "tomorrow's supergroup today". The musical members of 8in8 each have different styles and the EP ''Nighty Night'' was created to reflect each one, with main lyricist Gaiman adapting to suit.
The Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...
hosted the Rethink Music conference in April 2011, inviting musicians and representatives of the music industry to attend. During the discussions Amanda Palmer raised the question of how fast an artist could complete the process of creating an album, from writing new material to releasing the work. Shortly afterwards she joined with the other members of 8in8, forming the group to write and record an album as quickly as possible. On 25 April 2011 they went into Mad Oak Studios with producer Sean Slade. They had the intention of creating an album of eight songs in eight hours, but fell short of that target, completing six songs in 12 hours. The album, available under a Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
license, went on sale on Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...
, raising over $21,000 for the Berklee City Music Network
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level course ...
.
The session was broadcast live on Rethink-Music.com, and the band members used Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
to communicate with fans, encouraging them to put forward ideas for the lyrics. Further involving the creative input of their fans, the Creative Commons license allowed people to create their own music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devic ...
s for each track, with the best ones being reposted by members of the group.
The band have played one concert, returning to the Rethink Music conference just hours after completing the record. They played the set at the Berklee Performance Centre.
References
{{Authority control Musical groups established in 2011 Neil Gaiman Rock music supergroups Ben Folds 2011 establishments in the United States