News Tag: News Update (× Clear Filter)
Our Guitarist Ian is Now Officially a Dad!
Nov 30, 2018
Our guitarist Ian is now officially a dad! Say hello to his baby girl, Emilia Claire Drake, born on November 26th!
Reminisce was released 6 months ago today. Get your free copy!
Jun 30, 2018
Time flies when you’re having fun! Today marks the 6 month anniversary of our 6 song EP, Reminisce. To celebrate, we’re making the album available for FREE download for the rest of the weekend. That’s a full 36 hours to get your hands on a copy. Head over to our Bandcamp and click the download link. Then you can add…
Happy Father's Day, and a Big Announcement About Our Guitarist
Jun 17, 2018
Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dads out there. And speaking of dads, we have some exciting news: Our guitarist Ian is going to be a dad! His wife is due in November and they will be having a baby girl. Make sure you tell him congrats!
Pictures from the Hi Tone Show Are Now on Facebook
Jun 16, 2018
The editing process took longer than we wanted, but all the pictures from the April 14th show at the Hi Tone are now on our Facebook page. Check out the full album here. We also added a few of the best pics to the gallery on our media page. Enjoy!
Thanks for a Great Show at the Hi Tone Last Night
Apr 15, 2018
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Hi Tone last night to cheer us on. It was loud, it was hot, and it was rowdy: all the ingredients for a good show. We also owe a HUGE thanks to the Zoo Girls for providing their lush vocal harmonies and relatable song writing style to start things off right, and…
Happy 25th Birthday to Tyler!
Mar 17, 2018
Today we want to wish our singer Tyler a happy 25th birthday! And happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone!
Congrats to Tyler and His Family on the Arrival of Their Third Daughter
Feb 21, 2018
Today was a special day for our singer, Tyler, and his family as they celebrated the arrival of their third daughter, Magnolia Christine Hopgood. We wish the best to him and his newest family member!
Our Music Is Now on SoundCloud
Jan 23, 2018
Several years ago, when we first started releasing music and building our online presence, SoundCloud wasn't nearly as big as it is today. Instead of publishing our music on SoundCloud, we decided to upload our music to a few other streaming services that were hip and trendy for independent artists at the time, specifically Grooveshark and RadioReddit. In recent years, both of those websites…
One Year Anniversary of Blues Gone Bad, New Lyric Videos Now on YouTube
May 1, 2014
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the release of our second album, Blues Gone Bad. To celebrate, we have a series of lyric videos that we will be uploading to our YouTube channel during the next few weeks. Each video will feature a song from Blues Gone Bad and the official lyrics to accompany them. The first one is available now…
TODAY ONLY: Use This Promo Code for Free Music
Dec 20, 2013
Christmas is coming soon, and it's been a while since we've done a "Fan of the Month" update. So, to get in the holiday spirit of giving, we have a very special promotion. For the next 5 days (from now 'til Christmas Eve), we will be giving away a free musical goodie everyday. We will post a promo code that can be redeemed for a free item (or items) at our Bandcamp page. But here's…
AMS Spends Downtime Renovating Recording Studio, New Videos Coming Soon
Oct 29, 2013
We're long overdue for an update, so let's catch up. Long story short, we haven't done much during the past few weeks because I've been incredibly busy moving into a new house here in Memphis. I'm starting to get settled, but I still have one more important thing to do: set up our new practice/recording space. Tyler is coming over this weekend, and we're going to paint the walls and finish…
Spectrum Music Festival Photos Now Online
Sep 28, 2013
We just posted some sweet pictures from the Spectrum music festival. Check out the album on Facebook. Thanks to Krissy Bernhardt from LiveImage Production Studios for handling the photography and editing. (Also, thanks for…
A Big Thanks to Everyone Who Came to the Spectrum Show
Sep 16, 2013
We owe everyone a big thanks for coming out to the Spectrum show on Saturday night. We had a great time (as usual), and we hope you did too. Pictures and videos will be uploaded as soon as they're ready. If you missed the show, we played a mix of material from our first and second albums. You can check out the setlist here…
A Short Break While Tyler Spends Time with His New Baby
Jul 23, 2013
Thanks for everyone's support as we put a temporary hold on band stuff while Tyler spends time with his new baby. Everything is going well so they were able to leave the hospital over the weekend. Also, on another note, Ian had a great time celebrating his 22nd birthday on Sunday! In the meantime, our good friend and media specialist, Cardin Pelletier, has been making some progress on the…
Meet Tyler's New Baby Girl!
Jul 18, 2013
A big congratulations to Tyler and Michelle, who welcomed Melody Grace Hopgood into the world today! Here's a picture of their healthy baby girl.
Site Updates, Including the Latest Band History
Jul 17, 2013
We've done several small updates to our website over the past few days, and one of the most important changes happened on the info page. When you get a chance, go to that page and scroll down to the "Band History" section. You'll see that we've updated the band's history to include everything up till now (before we made this revision, it hadn't been updated in over a year). This is a…
New Videos Coming Soon & Tyler's Baby Girl On the Way
Jun 19, 2013
Hey people, we haven't posted much lately, so let's take a minute to catch up. We're working on two main projects at the moment: The first project is a set of videos that we're making for our YouTube channel. We plan on releasing a lyric video for each song on Blues Gone Bad. We're excited about this project because we want everyone to see…
Our Second Album is Now Being Mastered, More Details to Come
Mar 19, 2013
Just checking in with everyone since we haven't posted in a while. The mixing and mastering process is going well. In fact, we're just polishing things up. So as the music is nearing completion, here's what you can expect to see: Over the next few weeks, we're going to post several important things, including the official name of the album, a preview of the album art, a snippet of the story…
No Morals $2 Sale Ends, Album Still Available for $4
Feb 26, 2013
Sorry guys, the 50% off deal for No Morals expires today. Don't worry though, because the album is still available at the regular price on our Bandcamp page. Before long, the new album will be released and it will have it's own sale. Speaking of the second album, we've been making some great progress on mixing the songs. Everything sounds good, and we get more excited every day as we hear all…
No Morals on Sale NOW
Feb 19, 2013
Remember that sale we mentioned recently? Well, it's starting today! For the next week, you can get our entire first album (including the digital booklet) in high-quality MP3, FLAC, etc. for only $2.00, with individual songs at $0.25 each. This incredibly low sales price (50% off the regular price) is the perfect way to celebrate the upcoming release of our second album. To take advantage of…
Don't Buy No Morals! (Yet...)
Feb 6, 2013
DON'T BUY NO MORALS! Since we're working on album number 2, this would be a great time to go back and listen to our first album, No Morals, or get a copy if you need one. But don't buy it yet! That's right, we're actually telling you NOT to buy our album. Why? Well, because we're in the band and we can let you in on a little secret: As it gets closer to the release date of our second album…
Thanks to All Who Came Out to the New Daisy Show on Dec. 22
Dec 23, 2012
Thank you to everyone who came to the show last night. We hope you had as much fun as we did. Pictures are on the way :) Now that the show is over, our main focus for the next 2 or 3 months will be recording and finishing our second album. We're hoping to finish guitar tracks and start on vocals within the next week. Keep checking back for more details about the release, which will be announced…
Happy 16th Birthday, Ashton
Sep 9, 2012
Today is Ashton Drake's 16th birthday. Our drummer is celebrating by getting a new car! He's been helping us with a lot of new material during practices lately, and it won't be long before we get him in the studio again to lay down some drum tracks. And we have that long awaited interview video planned with him too! We are really excited about all of our upcoming projects, and we have more…
AMS Album Download Available for $4, Physical CDs $6
Aug 21, 2012
Last week's offer is now over so unfortunately the digital booklet is no longer available as a free download on the website. However, the booklet will always be available with all purchases of No Morals. Remember, the album is available for immediate download in several high-quality file formats at our Bandcamp store for only $4. Get your digital copy at…
New Projects in the Works, No Morals Still Available for Purchase
Aug 13, 2012
Now that Ian is back in town, American Music Standard is back into the usual grind of practicing. However, we've also been working on some new material and we've been doing a lot of planning for upcoming projects. It's only a matter of time before we will announce a big surprise related to that...but we can't get your hopes up too much yet because it still needs some work. To hold you off until…
Ian's International Trip Comes to an End with a Performance at the SGAE
Jul 25, 2012
My trip in Spain is coming to an end and I'll be back in Memphis (and back working on band stuff) on Saturday. But before I talk about that, here's a few things about what I did since the last update. First of all, I celebrated my birthday on the 21st of July. Thanks to everyone for their happy birthday wishes on Facebook and elsewhere. Needless to say, being in Spain was a great opportunity to…
Ian Gives an Update on his International Travels
Jul 16, 2012
It's been a few weeks since our last update and a lot has happened, so I'll do my best to summarize everything: First of all, I'm having a great time and learning a lot while traveling through Spain and studying Spanish music. I've been studying some of the most noteworthy Spanish composers throughout history (such as Manuel de Falla) and listening to samples of their work. It's always fun to…
Ian Travels Abroad to Study International Music
Jun 24, 2012
Hey everyone, how's life been going since our last update? In case you're wondering what took us so long to do another post, don't worry: We have a good excuse! The band is taking a break from the usual practice and song writing because Ian is traveling to several different countries in Europe. After spending a week in London, Ian just arrived in Spain. Although he will be spending most of the…
Missed Our Show on May 19th? Watch the Footage Online!
Jun 9, 2012
Several videos from the May 19th show have been uploaded to our YouTube channel. Check out this playlist to see them all in one place, pick and choose which ones you wanna watch, or watch them all continuously. If you couldn't make it to the show, watching the footage is…
Photos from 1884 Lounge Posted Online, and Happy Memorial Day 2012
May 29, 2012
Hopefully everyone had a good Memorial Day yesterday. In case you haven't seen them yet, pictures from the show are being posted to this album on the LiveImage Facebook page as they get edited. We still have a video on the way too. The video captures some of the most memorable moments from the show…
1884 Lounge Photos Coming Soon
May 19, 2012
It's been a few weeks since we did a blog post here on the site, so hopefully everyone has been keeping up with our short, regular updates via Facebook and Twitter. Tonight is our first show in over a year, and the first show we've done since releasing our first album No Morals and changing the name to AMS. I won't bore you with any more details about the show (go check Facebook if you need any…
Ongoing Search for New Bassist, Hear Behind The Scenes Music on YouTube
May 2, 2012
As we prepare for our upcoming shows this summer, we've been practicing hard and trying out a few potential bassists. If you wanna hear a little behind-the-scenes action, here's a clip from one of our latest practices. We were screwing around and tried out a fun jam song to put our…
Old Website Permanently Shut Down, But AMS Is Here to Stay
Mar 23, 2012
If you've been to AmericanMusicStandard.com lately, you probably noticed that we've been working on the new website. We transferred some of the old RRR content that was worth keeping, and we used this opportunity to make a lot of small improvements. We're definitely happy with the new site, and we hope you'll agree. We might add/change a few more…
Happy 19th Birthday, Tyler
Mar 17, 2012
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone, and happy 19th birthday to our talented lead singer, Tyler Hopgood. Have you heard his energetic vocal performance on those two demos yet?
Welcome to the New AMS Website
Feb 22, 2012
Hey everyone! Welcome to our new website. We are American Music Standard, formerly known as The Rock n' Roll Refugees. All future content will be posted here, but you can still access our old content in the news archive.
Merry Christmas! AMS Pauses Recording for the Holidays
Dec 25, 2011
Merry Christmas everyone! After working on a lot of bass tracks lately, the band is taking a short break from recording to celebrate with their families today. More updates are on the way over the next few days. If you haven't done this yet, follow AMS on Twitter to keep up with all the latest news related to the new album!
Happy Thanksgiving 2011
Nov 24, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! More updates are on the way. Until then, enjoy the turkey and be thankful.
Album Rehearsal in Full Swing, All Demos Still Available for FREE Download
Nov 15, 2011
The band has been working hard on the upcoming album. We've been planning and rehearsing non-stop over the past month, and we're on schedule to start recording in early December. Go check out our Facebook page to see some pictures from the latest rehearsal, which went very well! There will be a lot more news about this in the near future, especially once we start recording. Note: We're also…
Meet Ashton Drake, Our Rhythm Expert (And Free Downloads!)
Nov 6, 2011
We'd like to thank everyone who has purchased merchandise since we opened the online store about 2 weeks ago. Your support has been amazing. Over the next week, you can get a free copy of our demos from the music player on the media page. It's our simple way of saying thank you. If you haven't gotten a copy of these songs yet, go download them whenever you want. If you haven't purchased any…
We're Back from Vacation, New Photos Now Online
Aug 16, 2011
After a relaxing vacation in Gulf Shores to enjoy the last part of summer, the band is back in action. But we weren't totally lazy at the beach! In fact, we brought an acoustic guitar, a notebook, and we put the finishing touches on several new songs. If you check the music player, you'll notice that Hard Way Out is no longer available for download. But Tyler's pictures from the photo shoot…
Hard Way Out Demo Now Available, Happy Birthday Ian!
Jul 21, 2011
Have you ever taken the hard way out? We have, and we wrote a song about it! Check out our latest demo, Hard Way Out, now available on the music player. Hard Way Out is one of the band's oldest songs, written over 4 years ago. But it's stood the test of time and remains one of the RRR's favorite songs. Hopefully you enjoy listening to it as much as we love playing it. Here's what to expect…
Hard Way Out Demo and New Band Photos to be Released Soon, New Website Updates
Jul 18, 2011
We've been making some good progress on Hard Way Out over the past week. You can expect to see that released very soon. This is one of the band's favorite songs, and we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do. After meeting with our media specialist last week, we decided not to film a video of the recording process. But don't worry, we still did something productive. We decided to do a photo…
Searchin' for Love FREE Download No Longer Available, New Demo Coming Soon
Jul 12, 2011
Hopefully everyone downloaded a copy of Searchin' For Love because it's no longer available for download! If you did get a copy, enjoy! If you didn't, the full song will always be available to stream for free on the media page. Also, the band is about start working on another demo: Hard Way Out. That will be coming soon, along with some behind-the-scenes footage of the recording process. We…
Searchin' For Love FREE Download Available for Limited Time
Jun 28, 2011
If you liked the demo of Searchin' For Love, it's now available as a free download. Just like the other two demos we made available for download back in April, there's no catch involved, and everyone is invited to take advantage of this offer. You can make as many copies as you want, send it to your friends, put it on your iPod, whatever. But remember, this won't last long! By the way, sorry it…
Meet Tyler Hopgood, Lead Vocalist
Jun 4, 2011
How well do you know the band? Get to know Tyler Hopgood a little better by watching his new interview video! In this interview, Tyler introduces himself and discusses how his struggle with drugs and alcohol affected his song writing and music. Go watch it at our YouTube channel! You'll probably learn some interesting stuff about the RRR's lead singer. If you haven't done this yet, now would be…
Searchin' for New Music? Here's Searchin' For Love
Jun 2, 2011
The official demo of Searchin' For Love is finally done! Go listen to it on the media page right now. If you like what you hear, stop by our Facebook page and post a comment on our wall. We definitely appreciate all of your support. (Remember, we put a lot of time and effort into creating high quality recordings for our fans, so we strongly recommend using good speakers or headphones.) If…
Time's Up to Download the FREE Demos
Apr 20, 2011
Did you download the songs? If you didn't, time's up! But don't worry; the songs will always be available to stream on the media page. If you haven't done this yet, you should take a look at our page on ReverbNation. It has lots of great features for fans to connect with us. For example, you can embed our music player on your blog or website, or join the street team and help promote the band in…
Two New Demos Now Available on Media Page
Apr 7, 2011
The two songs are finally ready! Head to the media page now and listen to the official demo of Morning Light and Long Road Home. On the media page you can stream full songs for free—as much as you want, any time you want. Don't forget, these two songs are only a small sample of our music. We have a wide variety of material and our music covers a wide range of sounds. And this is only the…
Video of March 19th New Daisy Show Now Available on YouTube
Apr 2, 2011
The video from the show is now up on YouTube and the media page. If you didn't get a chance to go to the gig, we highly recommend you check it out. Despite two weeks' worth of distractions, we've also made some good progress on the two recordings. They will be available on the media page within the next couple of days. A lot of minor changes/updates to the website will be coming gradually over…
AMS Performed Encore at March 19th New Daisy Show by Fan Request
Mar 22, 2011
Saturday night's show at the New Daisy went great and we had a lot of fun. Our fans that came got to hear us play two new songs: Tyler's solo song "Better Than You" and a new song written by Ian called "Searchin' for Love." We also got cheered to play an encore and performed the classic cover song "Brown Eyed Girl." A special thanks to Cardin Pelletier, our media…
Happy 18th Birthday, Tyler
Mar 17, 2011
Today is Tyler Hopgood's birthday and he turned 18 so make sure you wish him happy birthday! Then come to the show on Saturday and watch him perform!
Valentine's Day Show Was a Success
Feb 14, 2011
The show on Saturday night was a great success. We'd like to thank all of our fans for supporting us. You guys were a great audience and we had a lot of fun. Some pictures and video from the show have been uploaded to the media page and our YouTube channel. There's also some good media floating around on Facebook, if you can manage to find it…
Meet Ian Drake, Lead Guitarist
Jan 24, 2011
In case you guys are interested in learning more about the band members, we've updated the "Meet the Band" section of the info page. To go along with this update, we've released a special video on our media page and YouTube channel. In this interview, Ian introduces himself and shares a little bit about his guitar playing experience, song writing style, and passion for music. An…
New Website Progress Update
Jan 15, 2011
Just checking in to let everyone know that we are trying to update the site on a regular basis to keep the content fresh. Today we made several minor changes to the site, mostly to fix bugs and improve appearance/performance. You'll notice that we added an "eco-friendly" badge to the bottom of the home page. That's because this website is powered 100% by wind power, which we thought…
AMS Awarded 2nd place in Ticket Sales and 3rd Place in Crowd Response
Nov 14, 2010
After an awesome show at the Battle of the Bands, the band got 2nd place in ticket sales and 3rd place in crowd response (out of 7 bands). Everyone should check out the pictures from the show! A special thanks to all of our friends that came and cheered us on. We are already working on getting another show, and it should be even bigger and better than the last one! We'd also like to thank…
Back to top
