Smalltown Poets

High school buddies Michael Johnston, Danny Stephens and Byron Goggin started talking about starting a band while in the same creative writing class at Georgia's Tifton High in 1995. By the time they added Kevin Breuner and Miguel DeJesus, a year later, they were signed to Chordant and released their self-titled debut. While it wasn't a rousing success, after its release, several core band members were feeling rather burnt-out about their music, and began pursuing individual life dreams that ranged from artist management, to film and photography, to NASCAR racing. But fortunately, while the original members-cum-creative writers continued "finding themselves," they were also spending time honing their craft, weaving organic poetry (lyrically soft and buoyant) into their own melodic alt rock. Then they moved labels from Forefront to BEC for their 2004 release, It's Later Than Ever. That record celebrated an artistic meeting of the minds with the label and the band, and for once the members felt they could fully focused on a solid Smalltown future. Perhaps someone finally told them how gifted their tunes really were.