Sometimes all it takes is the planting of a seed...
It all started back in 1996 when a young Thomas Scott learned that two of his best friends were learning to play the guitar. Upon hearing them play, he became insanely jealous and desperate to learn to play the guitar as well.
Tom learned what he could from his friends, but he wasn't exactly a natural; it wasn't until he started taking private lessons that he realized his talent for the instrument.
After taking private lessons for a few months it became apparent to young Tom that playing guitar was not to be a simple hobby, but a lifelong career... To him, it seemed like playing guitar was a way to live out every stupid little dream and fantasy he had. The guitar would finally allow Tom to be heard by those he felt could not really hear what he had to say. He tried his hand at writing within the first couple of years of playing guitar, and would continue to hone his craft throughout his adolescence, almost entirely in secret. Only a handful of people would ever hear anything Tom had written in those early years, mostly because, in his words, "the songs were really, really bad and embarassing!"
Several attempts to form a band through high school and shortly thereafter failed for various reasons, none of which are very interesting. The only point of interest was Tom's decision to name his band the "Union of Lanterns".
The story behind the name isn't very exciting ("It came from an inside joke that nobody else would find funny"), but the meaning behind the name is serious and uplifting: Lighting the way for people who are suffering, and showing them that life can be so much better if only we make it so.
The meaning behind the band name comes from Tom's own personal experiences: Debilitating physical illness in 2003 put Tom on hiatus from both playing and singing, and it was feared that he would never play or sing again. Determined not to give up on his dream, he did everything he could to try to make his life better .
Tom would recover from his illness, slowly, gradually returning to singing and playing guitar: "I had to relearn how to play the guitar and relearn how to talk and sing", says Tom. "I had to retrain the muscles. It wasn't easy but it slowly got better". All the while he crafted new songs while polishing some old ones that weren't too embarassing to play. In Tom's own words: "I knew I had some decent songs on my hands, and I figured as long as I kept writing, the songs would get better." Despite feeling confident about the songs themselves, Tom was still very timid. "I knew the songs were good", he says, and with a laugh, adds, "I just wasn't sure anyone else would think so!"
Tom would eventually record some demos, mostly of cover songs, with 2 originals, in his bedroom. Still unsure of their quality ("I actually knew they still weren't good enough, but I figured 'what the hell, maybe this will convince people I haven't wasted the last 5 years of my life!'"), Tom made a few copies for friends, and it wasn't long before more and more people were asking for their own copies. Covers of "Rocketman" and "Wild Horses" were highly praised, but surprisingly (at least, surprising to Tom), the two original songs on the demo CD, "Josephine", and "Crying Song", were getting the most positive feedback.
Tom's confidence in his writing skills grew, and he began playing various open mics to improve his stage show. While he was given encouragement from audiences, it became obvious to Tom that without his own album, he wasn't going to get very far, so he decided to embark on the ambitious task of doing a whole album, completely self-produced.
The learning curve was steep, and Tom would spend many, many, many days and nights alone, learning how to write and record songs, and learning how to become a better guitarist ("I really wasn't that good", Tom declares matter-of-factly). Eventually, he had about 18 or 19 songs more or less written, and decided it was time to put them on a CD.
Around this point, Tom had begun teaching guitar lessons, and one of his first students showed so much promise that Tom offered him a spot in his soon-to-be-greatest-band. His name was Darren Watts, the youngest brother of one of one of Tom's schoolmates, Ryan (who was actually one of the first bandmates Tom had played with a few years back).
Darren and Tom would begin practicing together almost immediately, and Darren was a fast learner. As Tom puts it, "He learned in two years what I learned in five or six... he was, and is, very good and very quick." Darren would also pitch in on engineering duties for the album, and would lend his playing and singing to several tracks. Recording was an arduous task and was mostly trial and error, but just like everything else, the recordings gradually got better and better.
This brings our story to the first half of 2007, and finally, after eleven years, the Union of Lantern's first album is about to be finished. Boldly titled "Truth (if you want it)", the album is a collection of songs Tom has written over the last seven years, with topics such as peer pressure, addiction, and failed romance, contrasted by songs and lyrics about moving towards a better life, and "just being awesome in general". (Tom has claimed on more than one occasion that he is starting a t-shirt company called "Team Awesome", with t-shirts bearing the words "TEAM AWESOME" written largely on the front in bold.)
On the process as a whole, Tom has the following to say:
"Recording has taken a really long time, and it's been difficult because I had to learn to be producer and engineer and guitarist and singer and writer. It's been pretty bizarre, and this album has been a long time coming. More than anything now I just want to get it done and start playing live shows. I want to inspire people.
I've made mistakes in my life, a lot of them, and at times I feel like I've wasted most of life on things that aren't really important. But I guess that's the great thing about life - so long as you are still living, you can change and you can grow into something more than you are."
And that's the truth... (if you want it).
