Five Times August is the name of a solo music project by Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

 independent singer/songwriter/guitarist Brad Skistimas (b. August 5, 1983 in Lewisville, Texas

Lewisville, Texas

Lewisville is a city in Denton County in the U.S. state of Texas. The 2010 United States Census placed the population at 95,290 within . The city also includes of Lewisville Lake....

). Every song off the album "The Independent (l.p.)" was placed on popular MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 programming like Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County

Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County

Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, often referred to simply as Laguna Beach, is a reality television series which originally aired on MTV from September 28, 2004 until November 16, 2006. It documents the lives of several teenagers living in Laguna Beach, an affluent seaside community located in...

. He is also the first unsigned act to get national distribution in Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...

 stores. Five Times August's album, Brighter Side, was released on March 18, 2008, with further distribution at Best Buy, Border's, and FYE stores. His album, Life as a Song, was released to iTunes on October 13, 2009, followed by further digital distribution on October 20 and finally on CD in Best Buy stores on October 27. The album consists of completely re-recorded versions of Five Times August songs from the previous two albums, including three new songs. Following the release of "Life as a Song," a series of digital singles were released in late 2010 and early 2011, one being a cover of the Carole King and Gerry Goffin written "Up on the Roof," originally made famous by The Drifters.

Discography

• Acoustic Sessions: Volume 2++", 2011
• Instrumental Karaoke Tracks!+, 2011
• Say | The Deluxe Reissue++, 2009
• Life as a Song, 2009
• Brighter Side - Stripped E.P.+, 2008
• Brighter Side, 2008,
• The Independent (l.p.)
  The Independent (l.p.) (album)
  The Independent is an album by Five Times August. It was the first release by an unsigned artist to get national Wal-Mart distribution. It is a re-release of the 2005 album "Fry Street" with same tracklisting, but different album title and artwork...
  
  , 2007
• Acoustic Sessions: Volume 1, 2005
• Fry Street
  Fry Street (album)
  Fry Street is a 2005 album by the band Five Times August. Every song on the album were used on the popular MTV series, such as Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. The album's title was taken for the name of the street in Denton, Texas where the band lived at the time of recording the album...
  
  , 2005
• Something Clever E.P., 2004
• Audience of Zero, 2003
• Hover, 2003
• Say, 2001

+ noted as a digital only release
++ noted as a limited edition handmade CD

Releasing Life as a Song

From July 16 to August 17, 2009, Skistimas partnered up with the site Kickstarter

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is an online threshold pledge system for funding creative projects. Kickstarter has funded a diverse array of endeavors, ranging from indie film and music to journalism, solar energy technology and food-related projects.-Model:...

to help fund the new album Life as a Song. Fans were invited to pre-order the album, and get different rewards if funding was successful. Rewards ranged from a digital copy of the album to a having your name in the CD liner notes to a weekend camping trip with Skistimas. The goal was $20,000 USD, and was reached with nine hours left in the project on August 16, 2009. It was the first project on Kickstarter to raise that large of an amount and be successful.

Say re-issue

In early 2010, Five Times August's debut album was re-issued in a two disc set, with disc one containing the original 2001 album and a commentary track while disc two contains acoustic re-imagining's of the songs found on disc one. The package was hand made by Skistimas in his home, reminiscent of the original copies of the album. Each copy comes autographed.

Connecting with fans

Five Times August, still remains an independent artist regardless of many label offers. Brad and his wife Kelly have decided in the last year to sell all of their belongings including their home to purchase an RV and tour the United States in an effort to connect with their current fans and to gain a wider fan base. Five Times August has been successful with this as they have visited many different college universities, small venues and even have played private sets at fan's homes. Five Times August has made an outstanding effort in the past year to show that independent artist can be successful in a broken music industry.

Complete list of televised song placements

• "First Time for Everything"
  • MTV's Laguna Beach After show (on mtv.com's overdrive)
  • Fox Reality’s The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episodes 7, 9. 10, 12)
• "Better with You"
  • MTV's Laguna Beach (episode 106)
  • Lifetime Channel's Monarch Cove (episode 101)
  • Oxygen Channel's Bad Girls Club (episode 103)
  • MTV's Reunited: The Real World Vegas (episode 106)
  • MTV's Real World Sydney (episode 1900)
  • Fox Reality’s The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episode 6. 10, 11, 12)
  • MTV's The Hills (episode 303)
  • Degrassi (episode 1008)
• "Save It for Later"
  • Oxygen Channel's Bad Girls Club (episode 103)
  • MTV's Laguna Beach (episode 203)
  • Fox Reality's The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episode 11)
• "So Typical"
  • MTV's Real World /Road Rules Challenge : The Dual (episode 15)
  • Fox Reality's The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episodes 5, 7)
• "Wherever"
  • MTV's Laguna Beach (episode 204)
  • MTV's Reunited: The Real World Vegas Casting Special
  • Fox Reality's The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episode 12)
• "Up to Me"
  • MTV's Laguna Beach (episode 208)
  • MTV's Reunited: The Real World Vegas Casting Special
  • Fox Reality's The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episode 7)
  • MTV's A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila II (season finale)
• "The Way You Do"
  • The CW's One Tree Hill (episode 69)
  • Fox Reality’s The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episodes 1,2, 5, 6, 7, 9. 10)
• "Owe It All to You"
  • Fox Reality's The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episode 9, 10)
  • MTV's Real World Sydney (episode 1900)
• "Do It Again"
  • Oxygen Channel's Bad Girls Road Trip (episode 2)
  • Fox Reality’s The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episodes 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13)
  • HBO's 2008 Season promo spot
• "Perfectly"
  • Fox Reality's The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episode 4, 5)
  • ABC's Eli Stone (episode 7)
• "Roll Into You"
  • MTV's Laguna Beach (episode 212)
  • Fox Reality's The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody (episode 9, 10, 11)
  • MTV's A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila II
• "Overrated"
  • MTV's The Hills (episode 6)
• "Sentimental Spell"
  • MTV's Real World Sydney (season finale)
• "One Way Road"
  • MTV's The Gauntlet (episode )
• "It's Not Over"
  • MTV's Real World Sydney (season finale)
• "The Way You Do"
  • 2009 GMC Sierra Commercial

External links

• Official Site
• Five Times August on MySpace Music
• Interview with Brad Skistimas on Channel One News