Second Cup Cafe: Secondhand Serenade

Secondhand Serenade is taking things down a notch, but not for long.

After an intense year touring around the country with his self produced-acoustic debut album "Awake" which stirred up a huge fan base, and performing alongside notable bands, such as the Plain White T's, All American Rejects, Good Charlotte and Hawthorne Heights, Secondhand Serenade is getting a second wind.

Secondhand Serenade, also known as John Vesley, has slowed things down a bit to focus his attention on his new album "A Twist in My Story,"(Glassnote/East West).

The album was produced by Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails, Angels & Airwaves) and Butch Walker (Avril Lavigne, All American Rejects) who both have notable producing records in the music industry.

Vesley performed songs from "A Twist in My Story" on the Saturday Early Show.

"A Twist in My Story" marks the first time that Vesley will sing and play guitar and piano accompanied by a band and orchestration.

"One of the things that amazes me about this album is how much development it portrays, yet how organic it all came together." Vesely said. "There's lots more to hear this time around but the recording process was still very natural. I think that feeling will come across to the fans."

Secondhand Serenade has been on a roll since its last album "Awake," by being MySpace's number one unsigned artist with over 27 million plays and over 268,000 friends for six months until he was signed to Glassnote Records at the end of 2006.

When "Awake" was released on Feb.6, 2006, it climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart while scanning over 85,000 copies and selling more than 240,000 digital track downloads.

Although there are some parallels with Vesley's previous album, the lyrics on "A Twist in My Story" reveal the different facets of Vesley, who shows raw emotion drawn from real life experiences.

"I kept a lot of those same things from the first album because the way I write didn't change," Vesley said. "It just became more complex. Some changes were necessary this time around because of the developments I've had as a person and as a performer. I just wanted to be creative and make the songs I wanted to make. I only used what I thought each song needed and that meant adding some new layers to the cake."

By Melissa Castellanos