Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia
All Music Guide:
Wry, thoughtful singer/songwriter Cary Brothers broke into the mainstream with the single "Blue Eyes," a gorgeously articulate ballad he contributed to 2004's Grammy-winning, hip-artist-showcasing Garden State soundtrack. Born in 1974 to a watercolorist mother and surgeon father, Brothers eschewed the sounds of his native Nashville in favor of Britpop artists like the Cure and the Smiths. Brothers attended college at Northwestern University in the early '90s, where he met Zach Braff, the writer, director, and star of Garden State. Both moved to L.A. after graduation, where Braff rounded out his acting résumé and Brothers partnered with a friend to open a small production company that produced, among other things, the Freddie Prinze, Jr., movie Sparkler.
By 2002, though, his instinct to make music had overtaken his drive to rub shoulders with Hollywood insiders. Brothers, who by then had developed an appreciation for the country-folk music he couldn't be bothered with as a youngster in Nashville, began playing around L.A. at such venues as the Hotel Cafe, a local haunt for upcoming singer/songwriters. There he honed the early material that would win over more than 10,000 buyers for his reverb-ringed spring 2005 EP All the Rage.
Before that disc came out, though, Brothers -- with the help of buddy Braff -- had already taken his sound to the small screen after an appearance on Scrubs. His swelling popularity, by then best evidenced by the iPod charts, where "Blue Eyes" broke the Top 100 Songs list and topped the folk chart, was also helped along by his business acumen. In 2004, he hit upon an idea for connecting with potential listeners: he conceived a free, downloadable "song of the week," still available on his website, that would allow fans of his moody, Coldplay-meets-U2 sound to send him feedback on what they liked and what, for them, could use some retooling.
By fall 2005, when a second EP, Waiting for Your Letter, was issued on his Procrastination Music label, the spike in visits to his site had confirmed that the concept was working. Armed with a strong fan base, Brothers released his debut full-length, Who You Are, in May 2007.
Wikipedia:
Cary Brothers is an American indie rock singer-songwriter originally from Nashville, Tennessee. After moving to Los Angeles and becoming a regular performer at the influential Hotel Cafe venue, Brothers first gained national attention with his song "Blue Eyes" on the Platinum-selling, Grammy-winning "Garden State" soundtrack. As an independent artist, he has since toured worldwide, released two full length records, and become one of the most-licensed artists in film and television. In the electronic dance music world, Brothers has found success collaborating with DJ Tiesto on a club remix of his song "Ride" as well as original material for Tiesto's latest collection "Kaleidoscope."
History
With songs influenced by everything from 1980s British New Wave music to 1970s folk music, Brothers achieved early critical and commercial success with his independent EPs "All the Rage" (2004) and "Waiting for Your Letter" (2005), both of which reached the top of the iTunes Singer/Songwriter charts. During this early stage of his career, Brothers found much success on MySpace, where he amassed over 8 million plays and 100,000 fans on his music page.
While many artists focus their efforts on radio exposure, Brothers went a slightly different route and pushed to get songs out to the public through film and television shows, leading a generation of similar-minded indie artists in the United States. Brothers' songs have appeared on the medical dramas Grey's Anatomy and ER, Scrubs the Fox mystery Bones, WB's Smallville, USA Network comedy Psych, ABC Family's show Kyle XY, One Tree Hill, and the hit Emma Stone comedy Easy A. The original version of Brothers' song "Ride" appeared on the soundtrack to the feature film The Last Kiss alongside Coldplay and Ray Lamontagne. Brothers has also performed on The Late Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Direct TV's CD USA. In 2005, he made a guest appearance with London band Aqualung on The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Brothers plays regularly as part of the musical community at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles, and he has since toured across America and Canada with such acts as Liz Phair, KT Tunstall, Aqualung, Ben Lee, Matt Nathanson, Imogen Heap, and The Fray. In addition to his career as a musician, he co-created The Hotel Cafe Tour, currently in its fourth year in both the U.S. and Europe. Brothers also co-produced Joshua Radin's first EP and the song "Winter" from Radin's record We Were Here.
In 2007, Cary Brothers signed a record deal with indie label Bluhammock Music for the release of his first full-length album, Who You Are, on May 29, 2007, which made the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. Produced by Chad Fischer (Alexi Murdoch) and mixed by Greg Collins (Grammy Winner - U2), the record features guest musicians Matt Hales from Aqualung and Priscilla Ahn. The video for the single "Ride" starring Brittany Snow was added to the rotation on VH1 in the U.S. In addition, the record won "Best Rock Album of 2007" by the Indie Acoustic Project. Brothers' track 'Ride' has also been mixed by Tiësto and was a success on the dancefloors of Europe in 2008. He helped close Friday night at Bonnaroo in the Summer of 2008 by making a guest appearance with Tiësto and repeated this musical pairing a few months later at the O2 arena in London.
In 2009, Brothers went into the studio to work on his second full length record. In addition, that year he had an original track called "Here on Earth" on the Tiësto record Kaleidescope alongside Sigur Rós, Tegan and Sara, Kele Okereke, Priscilla Ahn and Emily Haines.
"Under Control" was released on April 6, 2010 through Brothers' own Procrastination Music label and premiered at #1 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter charts and #10 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. Cary toured extensively in the United States in support of the record in 2010 and 2011 as both headliner and as an opening act for the Sara Bareilles tour. Staying active in social media, Brothers was named #14 on Paste Magazine's "50 Musicians Worth Following on Twitter" on August 2011.
