Knox Hamilton on hefty list of acts for 15-hour Nebo Jam

The Nebo Jam at the base of mighty Mount Nebo on Saturday in Dardanelle will feature an impressive lineup of Arkansas-based musicians.

Check it out: Adam Faucett, Bonnie Montgomery, Cody Belew, Arkansauce, Free Verse and Stephen Neeper and the Wild Hearts are just a few of the artists scheduled to play. In all, there will be more than 20 acts and more than 15 hours of jams.

North Little Rock's Knox Hamilton, whose latest video inspired an approving tweet from megastar Katy Perry, will be there as well. The band will be playing songs from its forthcoming debut full-length The Heights on Los Angeles-based Prospect Park records.

Recorded mostly in El Paso, Texas, and Los Angeles -- with one track, "Work It Out," laid down at Blue Chair Studios in Austin -- it's an album of arena-ready, pop-rock reminiscent of bands such as Coldplay and Vampire Weekend, loaded with sugary bombast, and perfect for fist pumping singalongs.

"We joke that the El Paso songs are our rock songs and the L.A. songs are our pop songs," says Knox Hamilton's lead singer Boots Copeland, 29.

It was in El Paso that producer Evan Peters urged the group to push for a bigger guitar sound. The more dreamy, synth-heavy tracks were a result of working with Los Angeles-based producer Tim Pagnotta of Sugarcult.

The results are seamless, and the band -- Copeland's brother Cobo on drums, guitarist Drew Buffington and bassist Taylor Finn -- and its label are aiming for an Oct. 21 release date.

Knox Hamilton, named for a student pictured in a 1972 Parkview High School yearbook Boots and Cobo found while volunteering at their church thrift shop, already has recorded several EPs, but The Heights is its full-length debut.

The Copeland brothers, sons of a minster, have been playing music for most of their lives, starting out by playing with the equipment at Greater Life Church in Sherman, Texas, where their father was the pastor.

"We lived across the street in a parsonage and we would go over anytime we wanted and turned on the PA and just made some noise," says Boots, who started out as drummer before switching to bass when Cobo showed an affinity for drums.

They moved to North Little Rock about 15 years ago and started Knox Hamilton about five years ago.

Through Spotify, where its early EPs could be found, Knox Hamilton caught the attention of Prospect Park.

And, yeah, the title The Heights comes from the ritzy Little Rock neighborhood and is the name of the album's final song, a sweet, loving ballad inspired by a brief but much-needed stop at the little one-bedroom apartment Boots Copeland and wife, Sarah, were sharing at the time while the band was on tour.

"We came home for a night, just passing through on the way to Tulsa, or someplace," he says. "The song says 'Tonight our little apartment is a house in the Heights,' That's how you feel after touring. I knew I missed it and I knew why I missed it, but I didn't know how much I missed it."

The Heights track "Washed Up Together" has already gained traction with the help of a particularly creative and somewhat startling video and a nod from pop superstar Katy Perry.

Crafted by well-known video director Titanic Sinclair, the clip features band members and their friends being vacuum sealed, with the viewer getting a bird's-eye view of the subjects' faces during the process. The finished product is funny and a little creepy.

About 20 directors submitted ideas, but Sinclair's stood out, Copeland says. "[Bassist] Taylor said, 'I've never seen this done in a video.' This was pretty out there and if we want people to remember our video and song, we've got to do something that sticks."

The video shoot found band members and others individually on a large bed with plastic pipe and a large plastic bag wrapped around it. A vacuum cleaner was used to suck the air out of the bag and the faces of the participants went from a normal expression to, well, something closer to smooshed; entombed and immobile inside an almost airless, clear plastic coating with their faces looking like they've been smacked against a windshield at 50 mph, all in high definition.

"I did way more takes than the others had to," Copeland says. "I was singing the whole song through, like, 10 times. Your hands are by your sides, you're laying on a bed thinking 'I don't know how this is going to end.'" There was a tiny air hole cut into the plastic, but it had a tendency to not stay put.

"I'd gotten through seven takes and I remember the first time that hole moved. It got down around my chin. I was so nervous."

Ah, the sacrifices a band will make for its art. But this one seems to be worth it. Not only is the video memorable, but Perry tweeted about it to her millions of Twitter followers.

"Check out this brilliantly made video that is already giving me anxiety: 'Washed Up Together' by Knox Hamilton," she wrote.

The video has racked up almost 700,000 views on YouTube.com.

The group will play Nebo Jam and a few other sporadic gigs before gearing up for a proper tour after The Heights hits the streets, Copeland says.

Weekend on 09/22/2016