2010 was truly a tough year for Bill DeMain, first he lost lots of personal journals and songwriting notebooks because of a flood and 4 months later a fire took out his entire home. But something good always comes out of something bad, Bill managed to save his guitar and wrote a lot of songs during this time when he had very little of material stuff and renting farm cottages around Nashville. As one half of Swan Dive, Bill had already released 9 albums over the past decade and he had also written songs for artists like Bleu, Farrah and Marshall Crenshaw. But he hadn´t made a solo record so Bill wrote 18 songs for his first album, he wanted to keep it brief so he only recorded 6 songs for "Extended stay". This is a warm and optimistic EP, filled with bright melodies and old school harmonies in the classic songwriting style. My favorite is the beautiful "In your letter", a piano ballad that Paul McCartney could´ve written for Wings in the 70´s. Also worth noticing is the Ben Folds-like "Raggedy man" which was co-written with David Mead, you can feel the 60´s flowing through your body during this song. Another great song is "Looking for a place to live", that chorus is made for radio. Imagine a mix of America and Shawn Mullins and you´ll right there in the atmosphere of this album´s opener.
Ryan Martin from Hope Republic ( ex Atlantic bands Frankie Machine & The Flying Tigers ) came to the guitar as a pre-teen only because his mother dissuaded him from his first choice for an instrument, the saxophone.
