Framing Hanley

Formed during 2005 in White House, Tennessee, the group that would become Framing Hanley began under the name Embers Fade and initially fused post-grunge textures with stylish hard rock. High-school classmates Chris Vest on drums and Luke McDuffee on bass crossed paths with vocalist Kenneth Nixon once they reached college, after which guitarists Brandon Wooten and Tim Huskinson completed the roster. The fledgling Embers Fade holed up in Vest’s basement to compose material and cut demo recordings, later leveraging those tracks to contact former Creed bassist Brett Hestla. Hestla, struck by what he heard, stepped in as an early guide and refined the members’ approach to songwriting. Further momentum arrived in 2007 when the band secured a deal with the Florida-based independent imprint Silent Majority Group. Honoring their late friend Ashley Hanley, who perished in a car accident in late 2006, they adopted the name Framing Hanley and tracked their debut album The Moment inside a compressed six-week window. Drawing inspiration from 30 Seconds to Mars and 3 Doors Down, the record juxtaposed introspective ballads against anthemic post-grunge numbers while earning airplay from Sirius Radio that expanded the band’s reach. Tim Huskinson departed in 2008; guitarist Ryan Belcher arrived in time to help cut a cover of Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop.” The band transformed the rapper’s provocative original with aggressive vocals and thick guitars, generating more than a million MySpace streams before issuing the track as a single in October 2008. Their second full-length effort, A Promise to Burn, appeared in 2010. Following an extended hiatus intended to restore creative energy, the musicians reconvened to shape a third album alongside multiple producers. Bassist Luke McDuffee exited after the sessions concluded but prior to release, and Imagen Records issued The Sum of Who We Are in 2014.