Bands typically break up before or after college. People move away, grow apart, or life takes over and there is a need to get jobs with long hours. But what happens when the ambition to keep creating is so strong that even the time-draining power of day jobs can’t get in the way?
For Faded Paper Figures, balancing the day jobs and music weren’t as easy as some might think. Heather Alden has just graduated from medical school (a real doctor!), R. John Williams is a full-time professor of English at Yale (just published his first book), and Kael Alden writes music for a production company in Los Angeles called Robot Repair (his music appearing in several Hollywood films, TV shows, video games and ads).
Kael and Heather married in 2005, and shortly thereafter moved to Irvine, CA, where they met John, who was also in the area doing a PhD in comparative literature at UC Irvine. Heather was studying biology, and Kael was already hard at work creating music for film and TV projects.
One afternoon in the fall of 2007, looking for a distraction from writing his dissertation, John suggested to Kael and Heather that they write some music together. Within three weeks they had written a few songs, and put them up online (on Myspace, remember that?). Positive feedback influenced them to continue writing and release a full album, “Dynamo”, in 2008.
After playing some shows in southern California, the band won “Best Electronic Band” at the OC Music Awards, and was listed by the New York Post as a “new music must-have.” NPR called the band’s debut album “clever, intriguing . . . even beautiful.”
During the next three years, the band sent tracks back and forth online, video chatting, and emailing notes to write two more studio albums, “New Medium” (2010), and “The Matter” (2012).
By 2013, a high volume of plays on Spotify, LastFM, Hype Machine, and Pandora, and appearances on everything from ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” to MTV’s “The Real World,” NBCSports, and E! Then, just as the band was contemplating a fourth album Kael and Heather discovered that they were expecting a baby. Many fans wondered whether Faded Paper Figures would be able to maintain songwriting work with so much going on. But very little seems to slow them down.
The band is now set to release their fourth studio album in August, 2014, titled “Relics.” The album will be out 25 August (UK date) on Shorthand Records.
RobMoro 
Bands typically break up before or after college. People move away, grow apart, or life takes over and there is a need to get jobs with long hours. But what happens when the ambition to keep creating is so strong that even the time-draining power of day jobs can’t get in the way?
For Faded Paper Figures, balancing the day jobs and music weren’t as easy as some might think. Heather Alden has just graduated from medical school (a real doctor!), R. John Williams is a full-time professor of English at Yale (just published his first book), and Kael Alden writes music for a production company in Los Angeles called Robot Repair (his music appearing in several Hollywood films, TV shows, video games and ads).
Kael and Heather married in 2005, and shortly thereafter moved to Irvine, CA, where they met John, who was also in the area doing a PhD in comparative literature at UC Irvine. Heather was studying biology, and Kael was already hard at work creating music for film and TV projects.
One afternoon in the fall of 2007, looking for a distraction from writing his dissertation, John suggested to Kael and Heather that they write some music together. Within three weeks they had written a few songs, and put them up online (on Myspace, remember that?). Positive feedback influenced them to continue writing and release a full album, “Dynamo”, in 2008.
After playing some shows in southern California, the band won “Best Electronic Band” at the OC Music Awards, and was listed by the New York Post as a “new music must-have.” NPR called the band’s debut album “clever, intriguing . . . even beautiful.”
During the next three years, the band sent tracks back and forth online, video chatting, and emailing notes to write two more studio albums, “New Medium” (2010), and “The Matter” (2012).
By 2013, a high volume of plays on Spotify, LastFM, Hype Machine, and Pandora, and appearances on everything from ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” to MTV’s “The Real World,” NBCSports, and E! Then, just as the band was contemplating a fourth album Kael and Heather discovered that they were expecting a baby. Many fans wondered whether Faded Paper Figures would be able to maintain songwriting work with so much going on. But very little seems to slow them down.
The band is now set to release their fourth studio album in August, 2014, titled “Relics.” The album will be out 25 August (UK date) on Shorthand Records.
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