Well a couple of weeks ago, our friend in Wayland posted some bummer news.
Wayland, you know them for their hit song ‘Ghost’ and our Weekend Kick-off song ‘Get a Little,’ and have made visits to the market plenty of times…sadly have announced that the band is officially on an indefinite hiatus, along with that, their website waylandtheband.com is no longer available.
Mind you, I haven’t spoken to Phil or Mitch directly of why the band or how the band ended up going this direction, but…that’s their story to tell. For this though, I’m here to pay tribute to a very big band that I enjoyed watching grow in my radio career.
It was YEARS ago when I was in Grand Rapids, MI at my radio station at the time WGRD. The Free Beer & Hot Wings Morning Show did this feature for a bit that you could say is incredibly similar to the 420 Music Meeting. Bands submit their song and the show criticized the hell out of it. However, this band named Wayland submitted a song named ‘Shopping for a Savior’ and the PD at the time JT said, ‘Hey, lemme see that song.’ The band came in, met up with everyone, the station added it, and if was off to the races for Wayland! At the time, I was a young buck in the radio biz….I just wanted to be involved in every which way I could, specifically wanting to meet bands cause well….that’s cool isn’t it?
I think if I can trace back, our first REAL time we all met each other was a radio-thon we were doing that included Mitch, Phil, Dean, and Tyler where people would call in to donate money….I was tasked with the social media aspect and we just started clicking with each other. Shows would get booked and just overtime we became friends….getting on the bus, being invited to the brewery, and eventually hitting up the movie theater to see movies with Mitch…it just kinda blossomed….and eventually, I became their ‘hype’ guy at certain shows with my trademark ‘WAAAAAAAAYLAND’ scream.
Then eventually, I got hired at Rock 108…away from Wayland and everyone I knew. I told them, ‘I’m gonna somehow get you into this market.’ Now, they would occasionally play the market, specifically Otis Tailgators in Cedar Rapids to a reasonable crowd. I was used to SOLD OUT crowds in Grand Rapids, so to see them here in Cedar Rapids to a crowd of like 50 people was a bit of a shock…and no one knew the songs! So…I invited them to Rock 108 for a station visit, interview, and even acoustic performance to record for the website…and ohhh man was my former boss PISSED! To this day I wasn’t sure why…I just wanted to introduce them to people and record some video….but hey….that all has passed.
Wayland was hard at work, still selling shows in Michigan, and I did my best to get this band to break in Iowa. Then ‘Ghost’ was released, Russ was in charge, and I brought it to him….to where he said ‘That’s a great song, let’s add that!’ We played it, and we would get texts and call ‘What is that song? Who is that? It’s awesome!’ We knew we had a hit…but…like typical radio, if it doesn’t survive the first couple weeks, most stations will drop it….but us? We kept at it…and it grew, and grew, and grew so much that we couldn’t get rid of it! It became a big his for Waterloo/Cedar Rapids! It’s just too bad that no other station gave it the time it needed.
It came full circle, to when the band booked Spicoli’s and I was nervous….like, I stuck my head out for these guys and I believe, will the crowd though? Then it happened, they sold over 100 tickets (which was pretty good for a new to market band essentially), and people showed up! I was amazed…like, hell yea….then they played ‘Ghost’ and the WHOLE crowd was singing along. When the crowd sang the chorus, the look on the bands face was like “Holy shit!” Sure, I brought the song, but it was P-1 Nation that really made it a hit in the area.
The band would continue to grow, and then…..COVID happened….it put everything at a standstill for over a year. When it started to calm down, I was so starved for live music and seeing friends, that when they booked a show in Walford at Wild Hogs…I was there. They were the first band I saw post-COVID, and not gonna lie….I started to cry…I missed my friends, I missed live music, and Mitch played a new song called ‘Indiana Jones’ that to this day, it still hits me, I think it is one of the best songs ever written with such passion.
Wayland music was my wife and I’s ‘walk in music’ for our wedding, I would call them up to see how things were going, and we’d always make each other laugh and just shoot the shit. I know this sounds like I’m saying goodbye to old friends or whatever, as it really isn’t…just closing a chapter on a band that was such a MASSIVE part of my radio career.
Since I don’t want this to go on for decades cause I probably could, Wayland to me was that band that I just got and I knew there was something special. They worked hard, they played hard, and just overall some of the greatest dudes I have ever had the pleasure of knowing in this industry. Even outside of radio and business, I’m so happy to call them friends.
I’ll still kick ‘Get a Little’ every Friday, and maybe sneak in ‘Ghost’ here and there…maybe someday they will come back, but until then, make sure to follow what Phil and Mitch are doing.
R.I.P Wayland….for now.
