“I was a very insecure frontman and if things weren’t done exactly how I thought they should be, I got really frustrated and was extremely possessive of my music,” he confesses.
He admits multiple lineup changes took their toll during the early days. Go, Burning the Days and Echoes from the Underground followed, but more than 25 years since the band’s formation, Scannell remains the only original member – on The Lost Mile, Sean Hurley played bass, Ron Lavella drums and Scannell keyboard and guitar, while the touring band has Donovan White on guitar and Mark Pacificar on bass. Little did he know, that his music would one day bring a form of therapy to fans around the globe.įollowing two albums, the group signed with RCA Records and shot to fame with Everything You Want, with the title track reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming one of the most played singles of 2000.
But having founded Vertical Horizon with former member, Keith Kane, during college and starting out performing at local clubs, Scannell remained “consumed” by music, so plans for grad school and becoming a therapist were inevitably abandoned. Promising his parents that he would study something other than music as a plan B, Scannell completed a Bachelor of Psychology at Washington D.C.’s Georgetown University, then worked at an adult daycare center for Alzheimer’s patients. However, guitar remains his passion, having received his first one at the age of seven and quickly developing a love for the life-changing instrument. In a first for Scannell, many of the tracks on The Lost Mile were written on the piano and what he sees as his “ineptitude” translates to captivating and whimsical instrumental breaks like on the beautiful closing ballad, “Save Love.”ĭavid Duchovny on His Late Blooming Music Career & Gaining Confidence as a Singer
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“A lot of these songs are six minutes long and that’s because at times it was like, ‘The intro’s not done yet,’” he explains. “I’ve had times as a songwriter where I was encouraged to write within the confines of a certain format, and I know how to do that from a structural place, but this was like, ‘Lets purposely burn that house down, break away from it and let the song do what it wants to.’ There’s an inherent beauty to coming from that authentic place.” The result, he says, is the “most selfish” album that Vertical Horizon has released, created with complete disregard of commercial viability or radio-friendly song formats and being released independently via digital platforms, with FLAC files available on the band’s website. While his songwriting themes have taken a turn, so have his musical forces. Scannell notes The Lost Mile veers from the group’s guitar rock path, deriving more from old records and artists who inspired him during his earliest days as a musician, like Depeche Mode, New Order and The Cure. This song comes from this place - thinking, ‘There’s no question in my mind that I will absolutely take care of you.’ It’s nice to love someone enough that you can throw everything else away and go, ‘If that’s what you need, I will give everything for you without hesitation.’” Sometimes complete disregard for reality and the absolute faith in one’s ability to overcome adversity can be unfounded, but also wonderful. “Other times I think it’d be nice for someone to just come in and save the day.
“It’s very much a knight in shining armor idea and sometimes that drives me crazy,” he says.
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