RICK SEIBOLD For Rick Seibold, New York isn’t just the name of his new EP, it’s also the city that represents a pivotal time in the singer-songwriter’s life. His sound has been shaped by struggle, and his passion for his craft permeates through every note. Raised on the East Coast in Wilmington, NC, Seibold’s creativity began budding by the age of 10 when, at the suggestion of his parents, he began acting in films produced out of Wilmington’s burgeoning film scene, including a part as one of Sir Anthony Hopkins’ children in the 1994 film “The Road To Wellville”. Spending many of his childhood summers on the North Carolina beaches, Seibold took up surfing and the guitar around age 15 where the sights and sounds of beach life quickly settled into his songs. In winter of 2005, Seibold moved to New York City to take an internship at MTV. Over the course of following three years, he experienced more than his share of the requisite ebbs and flows that quite often characterize the life of a focused and passionate musician living out their dream on the mean streets of New York City. The bright lights and big city that first lured him soon gave way to a nomadic lifestyle that often found him without a place to live. When he was short on cash, you could find him performing in a nearby subway or park, playing and singing until he was hoarse. While his days would be spent working at MTV and BET, his nights were often filled with spot gigs at various bars and clubs, playing until the sun came up. “Looking back, I’m not even sure how I made it,” says Seibold, reflecting on this time in his life. “A friend of mine once said that the best songs are written from just living life, so that’s what I was trying to do.” And live he did. Seibold channeled his struggles into a passionate pursuit of his music and, at the insistence of a friend, ultimately released his first collection of songs in EP form in 2007. His debut, That’s The Day, would spend an impressive four months in the iTunes Top Pop Albums chart in 2008. Led by the first single, “Mary”, his music found an audience with both Canadian and UK listeners, garnering him an unexpected fan base north of the border and across the pond. A 2008 move to Nashville has yielded a second collection of songs that marks not only the next chapter of Seibold’s life, but also a stark stylistic departure from the acoustic simplicity of his previous release. The new project, New York, was written and largely produced by Seibold himself, and finds him settling firmly into a wildly hooky pop music sound. He has been compared sonically to that of One Republic, Chris Brown, and even the Jonas Brothers. When asked about the marked difference between the two discs, Seibold replied "I wanted to make a record that captured my experience of living in the bustling city of New York".