By Dustin Weekley, Contributing Writer
Recently, West Liberty University students and artists have come together to record an all original album called “Moving On.” The album features multiple artists from the West Liberty and Wheeling area. Those involved in recording the album were Daniel Evick, Ian Beabout, Derik Board, Kaydon Hardman, Rachel Krems, Shane Powell, and another local group, The Kingsman.
The planning of the album has been in the works since 2015, and getting all of the artists as well as those who worked on the technical side of things took up until this year.
“The album process began in November of 2015 when I approached my friend Dan Evick about doing a project together,” Beabout said. “I am an interdisciplinary studies major, combining the areas of Public Relations and Music Technology, and my goal was to record, mix and produce an album of original music and then release it and do all of the publicity work.”
Evick, a local artist and one of the artists featured on the album, was approached by Beabout about getting together and organizing the production.
“I wanted to write and record an album for a few reasons,” Evick said. “I had a bunch of bits and pieces of guitar licks, chord progressions, and lyrical ideas but had never actually finished any songs. So, when Ian asked if I would be willing to give it a shot, I jumped at the chance and it turned out to be just the motivation I needed to start really writing!”The work done wasn’t limited to just the album. Broadcast and Digital Media Design majors Devante Brown and Corey Knollinger also produced the videos that were done to go along with the production of the album. The videos made were key for marketing the album, and one of them even won first place in West Liberty’s MADfest competition in the short film category.
“We also filmed a live video in the studio to promote the album,” Beabout said. “This was conceived about a year before it was actually recorded. I wanted to do a ‘live’ in the studio clip of Dan playing his song ‘Ship,’ and my vision was very 1970s, film grainy, intimate. I was lucky enough to meet filmmaker Corey Knollinger who totally got what we wanted. We shot it sometime late February with me running one of the cameras as well as recording all the sound in multi-track form and released it a few days later.”
The album is diverse in the genres of music that are on it. Evick said that it’s hard to put an exact genre on the album, but it lies somewhere between folk, pop, and blues music.
There were multiple artists working on the album and the result was a wide variety of music types being recorded. Each song is an original piece by each artist.
“It’s called ‘Moving On,’ which is a title of one of the tracks on the album, but it covers a lot of ground,” Beabout said. “Perhaps most of Dan’s material falls into the singer / songwriter vein of guitar and lyrics sort of folk music. However, he also explores a bit of rock, blues, eastern music, pop, and reggae on the album.”
The group was also invited to perform at the Student Exhibition at the Towngate Theater, where they played a 20 minute set for a full room. To help promote the album, they also played on Steve Novotney’s show on WKKX 1600 AM. Currently, they’re planning a gig at the Vino di Piccin winery in Lansing, Ohio, going on tour, and working on developing a documentary about the project with Knollinger.
If you’d like to listen to and purchase the album, you can do so here.
Photos provided by Dan Evick
