You can barely walk through it, but we're getting things done. (click to enlarge)
I will be the first to admit it. I like it when things are neat, organized, logical. But there is a sense of finality to organization. You clean up. You say “There, I’m done”. And then you go watch TV. Progress, I have learned, is varying levels of chaos. The same can be said for Creativity. Now maybe this is not universally applicable. I am quite certain that my university lab instructors would disagree. But I can tell you that our ‘band room’ has been in a state of barely navigable flux for the last month and we have written more songs, come up with more creative and ambitions ideas and learned and programmed more MIDI than we have in ages. If you are trying to make the song lyrics look pretty instead of just getting them down, you’re missing the point.
August has been, and will continue to be a crazy crazy month. We are not playing any shows until September, but are busier than ever working on the set, live show, writing and all sorts of thing I don’t want to tell you about. Just come to a show in September. I promise it will be worth it.
In life we all have good days and bad days. It can be affected by weather, like a rainy sunday afternoon will leave you bummed out and feeling like shit. Sometimes your feelings can be the direct result of a change in your day to day life such as a new apartment or a vacation somewhere warm. Sometimes you will hear a song that takes you back to when it meant everything to you and you’ll have a little three minute flashback of the “good old days”. Your feelings and emotions might not be what guide you down the long term path of life but they sure as hell fuel the tank that moves you on a day to day basis.
Some people go through life trying to enjoy every moment and appreciate what they have. Bad times are often softened with good family, kind friends and lots of distraction. Some people go through life sad or angry and often pointing out the obvious flaws in our messed up world, only elongating the down time. Many of us are both of these people and we’re just trying to make sure that we steady the wings on this f$#%ed-up plane so that we don’t fly off into the atmosphere or crash into the ocean.
Writing music is not one of my favorite things to do. I enjoy the end result of writing a song and I even enjoy moments of putting a song together. For the most part writing a song can be mentally and emotionally draining, that is if you’re working hard on it. Where your head is at when you’re creating and assembling a song usually directly effects what you’re doing with the song and where you want to take it. Writing a song with another person or a group of people is really a helpful way to bounce ideas around and reassure each other about vocal melody, drum beat, key changes, song structure and all the rest of it. The downfall to writing with other people is pride. Good constructive songwriting comes from working together, knowing how to approach suggesting change to the song and knowing how to accept change to the song. Pride enters the picture when one person is unwilling to change something or they want something done there way. Good songwriting chemistry is hard to find…overly proud songwriters are not hard to find.
Some say music is art but what’s art if the artist is the only one who wants it? If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound??? If a shitty song is written and no one listens to it, is it really art???
Some songs refuse to stay dead and buried.Mercy Please is a reincarnation specialist.Or it is a cat and it has used up six of its nine lives, which are as follows:
Life #1:It started out as a song with what I thought was a clever title – Amee.I thought this title was clever because it was the name of a girl and also the chord names, Am, E, E.There were two problems that we chose to completely ignore.1) Most girls with this name spell it Aimee, or if you’re conventional, Amey or Amy.2) The chords in the song are Am, Em, F.Oh well.
Life #2:For some reason we thought that we could get away with putting a punk chorus in the middle of a set of ballads and nobody would notice.When we realized this might not work we slowed it down and turned it into a long (emphasized long) jam song.I can’t really remember it but I’m quite sure it sucked so we stopped playing it.
Life #3:We went back to it for some unknown reason and wrote a new chorus and lyrics about the tortures of dating (gasp!).Renamed ‘Helicopters’ (thank God) this was a staple in our set for a while.People actually liked it!
Life #4:During the writing sessions we did with Byron in preparation for this album, it got a new chorus.It was recorded in that state.
Life #5:Listening to this song we realized that the new choruses were about a hundred times better than the verses.Byron and I jammed out some chord and melody ideas for the verses and all of a sudden it was a completely different song.
Life #6:It was okay but something was off and it almost got the axe again.Because it was put together in such a bizarre way it didn’t have the live energy that the other songs did.We decided it would only have a chance if we re-recorded it and (partly because we were running out of time) went with the simplest way possible.I went into Canterbury Studios on May 16, sat in front of a Baldwin Grand and a vocal mic, click in my ear, and played three takes.I think the one on the album is the middle of the three.
