Album Notes

Vacancy is the state or condition of being vacant; emptiness. “No Vacancy” is a depiction of the period of time I spent sleepwalking through my life and the aftermath of the awakening that started a new one. Sleepwalking for me was actually living life so fast that I lost myself. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore. I know I didn’t like what I was doing, but I didn’t know my way out of it. So I lived faster and piled distraction upon distraction to keep myself from thinking about being lost, much less how to be found. But I was haunted. Even while sleepwalking, I was haunted by something deep inside telling me that I needed to change, that there was something better. Finally, after a lot of crying and turmoil, I woke up. And packed up. I ended a successful, but miserable, career and moved across the country to find the real me.

An awakening of this magnitude changes everything. The aftermath is a total sense of freedom – the relief that I will never go back to my old life. The aftermath is the realization that I’ve chosen to live consciously, to actually think about who I am, who I want to be, and what I want to do. The aftermath is the realization that living consciously means actually hearing the little voice in your head (it’s much louder when you’re awake). Sometimes the voice whispers hope, sometimes it shouts FAILURE. I choose not to let fear rule my life, so the aftermath is ultimately the search, and the search is on. “No Vacancy” is the search for self, the search for spirituality to battle the shouting voice, the search to find your soul from the ether to make you feel alive again.

Kristi Rush's first full length album has been in the making since the release of her EP in 2005. Kristi spent a year writing many songs, recording demos, and performing them live. From this experience, she selected her best songs and started the search for a producer. At the end of this search she found Elisha Hoffman, an amazing rock producer who had made a name for himself in the Nashville rock scene through his production work with Alana Grace (subsequently signed to Sony) and Bang Bang Bang (recently signed to Warner Brothers). Kristi and Elisha were introduced by Paul Compton, Sr. Vice President of Murrah Music, a publishing company in Nashville. Murrah had just started a new pop/rock publishing and production division, Murrah Colton Entertainment, with Doug Colton at the helm. Elisha had recently signed with Murrah Colton as a writer/producer. After a few initial meetings and pre-production, Kristi and Elisha went into the studio.

"No Vacancy" boasts a talented group of musicians including Tony Harrell on piano/keyboards (India Arie), Spencer Campbell on bass (Eagle Eye Cherry), Tate Cunningham on drums (Crew), Steve Rutledge on guitars, Gary Tussing on cello (Trey Anastasio), Peter Hyrka on violin (Gypsy Hombres), and Elisha on guitars and programming. The album was recorded at Vibe56 with engineer, Kevin McDevitt manning the board, and Geoff Koval mixing it up. After a few months of recording, "No Vacancy" was born.