Breaking: Carolina Liar

Who: Los Angeles-via-Stockholm sextet Carolina Liar, who, with the help of mega-producer Max Martin, are soundtracking every premature break-up this summer with their hit "I'm Not Over."

Sounds Like: Combining the Killers' new New Wave, U2's knack for anthems and the bubblegum pop productions of Martin, Carolina Liar come off as the perfect house band for The Hills. Perhaps that's why singer Chad Wolf and the rest of the group had four songs from their debut album Coming to Terms featured on the MTV show. The band will spread their infectious pop across the country as they tour with The Academy Is... this fall.

Vital Stats

• Wolf had an early start in music, taking part with his piano-playing grandmother at a church in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. From there, Wolf moved to Los Angeles, where he interned for Songwriter Hall of Famer Diane Warren, danced in a Celine Dion video and played countless coffee shops. It was by chance he met famed Swedish pop producer Max Martin.

• "I was house-sitting for one of Max Martin's best friends." After befriending the boy band extraordinaire, Wolf was persuaded by friends to spend the summer in Sweden. Originally the plan was just to watch some World Cup games, but "On the flight over, I wrote the lyrics to Coming to Terms in a plane seat." A demo tape came out of that trip, and a year later, Wolf found himself back in Stockholm, recording an album.

• "Whatever I could get my hands on, I would listen to," Wolf says of the music that shaped him, starting with the first album he ever bought, Duran Duran's A View to a Kill. "I went through this crazy Cure and Smiths phase, then a heavy jazz phase, and then blues," Wolf says. "Tons of country stuff too."

Hear It Now: Coming To Terms is in stores now. Click above for Carolina Liar's exclusive performance of "Last Night."

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »

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