Transparent (New York rock band)

Lead singer and songwriter, Matthew Sassano was always involved in the music and arts within church and within his local scene from a young age. A video performance on YouTube of the band Skillet inspired him to start his own band as well as a trip in October 2010, when Matthew and now band manager, Steve Cox drove out to Indiana to see a Ron Paul campaign and when they returned, they started the band. The first song written was "Paranoid". Matthew was originally just the bassist and songwriter and then just a few months later prior to doing any recording, he became the lead singer. Matthew and guitarist, Bradley are the first two original members in the band. The instrumental for "Paranoid" was originally "Billboard of Pain"'s instrumental but Matthew switched both progressions. The first batch of songs written that are on the 4 song demo: "Do or Die", "Paranoid", "NWO" and "Billboard of Pain" are all on the full-length CD. The 4 song demo was released in July 2011. A year later from starting the band in October 2011, Matthew went out to New Mexico to visit family and during that trip, he wrote "Bridges" (which became title track to NASCAR The Game: Inside Line) and also wrote "Love to Hate You". More songs were written and all recording for the full-length album "Light in Darkness" was completed in October 2012.

Light in Darkness is the first full-length album by the New York rock band, Transparent, which was released on June 6, 2013. The album has 11 original songs including "Bridges" (the main menu song on NASCAR The Game: Inside Line that was released on November 6, 2012), "Breathe", "Paranoid", "Somewhere", "Unbreakable", "Dear God", "Love To Hate You", "March of the Damned", "Billboard of Pain", "Do or Die", and "New World Order". The album was recorded over the span of 2011-2012. The CD also has a booklet with artwork for each individual song, consisting of photography, collage and illustration done by band artist, Katie Cappadonia. Many of the pages were inspired by the artwork within Taylor Swift CD's because of the vivid storytelling qualities within the lyrics. Members of the band and friends of theirs were recruited to be actors within the art.

The song "Bridges" was written by lead singer, Matthew Sassano during October 2011 while he was on a trip to New Mexico. He also wrote "Love to Hate You" during the trip too. "Bridges" is based on the prodigal son in the Bible. The song almost got thrown out initially because of the drum interpretation by a previous drummer before Jesse Sprinkle. The song has received many positive reviews by online blogs and magazines such as Fabryka and Underground Uproar. "Bridges" also became the main menu song on NASCAR The Game: Inside Line for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. The previous year on the NASCAR game, the main menu song was from ZZ Top. During the summer and fall of 2012, Alfred State College Digital Media Animation students made the music video for Transparent's first single "Bridges" which is the main menu song on NASCAR The Game: Inside Line. The music video director was Jeremy Schwartz, a professor for the Digital Media Department and has worked on Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network. The video has a sort of stop-motion appeal to it with a drawn out, watercolor effect to give it a sort of surrealistic look. The students who made the video made a snow mountain background within the film by setting up rocks, putting powder on them, and then give it a close-up shot with a blurred effect, making it blend with the rest of the background. The effect added to the hills were made in Adobe Photoshop; and composite images of different backdrops within another photo of a hill. The smoke was created by liquid dynamics, experimenting with food coloring, alcohol, milk, and paint. There were many different storyboards and sketches, displaying character placement, the frames used, sketched out effects, and subtitles explaining the scene and how it was made. The effects used to place a background behind the characters was made with the use of the green screen and chroma keying. Over 6,000 frames were used within the project of the band posing in front of a green-screen. The backgrounds in the video are all photos that came from Alfred, New York or the Finger Lakes Region.

The music video can be seen on YouTube and is available for sale on iTunes. Originally, their song "New World Order" was supposed to be the song on the game but was switched out for "Bridges".

https://archive.is/20130217013934/http://dullko.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/lectureart-gallery-3-transparent-music-video/ http://lraewilson.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/bridges-gallery-opening-set/

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• Official website
• Official YouTube
• Picture 1