I have this theory that when something is supposed to happen it usually happens very quickly and seems to just slide along at an even pace, neither rushed or hurried nor difficult and rough. It just happens.
There have been experiences that have shaped this belief. When I moved to Seattle, for instance. It was a thought I had in December 2002 and in March 2003, I boarded a plane and 7 hours later landed in the Pacific Northwest and started on my way. Yes, my first year here was a series of trips and stumbles, but it was an easy decision to make to move here and while not precisely easy to make my way, it hasn’t been an uphill climb either.
Sure there have been pitfalls, but I’m beginning to stray from my original intent, something I’m wont to do when writing.
Ten Thousand Miles to Bedlam was an easy record to make. After the first recording session that seemed to go so terribly bad (only one track recorded that day out of five ended up being used – “Gravel Walk”) the rest of those recording sessions went smoothly and in the end we had our first fully realized album.
Wolves in the Walls was not an easy album to make. We started recording the album in the summer of 2009. We didn’t finish until the following summer, and had scrapped everything that we’d tracked in 2009 and a lot of everything from 2010. In fact, the great meat of that record got recorded two months before its release. It was a wild, frantic beast of an album, written about the hardest year of my life, recorded with volatile guys whose passions are only equaled by their talents.
I was sort of finished after that record. I love it; I think of it fondly, but it exhausted me. The tour afterward exhausted me. The year afterward exhausted me, and after that final show at the 2011 Northwest Folklife Festival where we played for an hour to an audience that never got off their feet and it seemed that all we could do was rise up, up, up… we crumbled.
Relationships between bandmates were tense and frankly, abusive. We all said and did some terrible things. We were critical to a degree where the only viable decision was to walk away from a slowly rising progression: two critically lauded recordings, three successful tours, being featured on Alaska Airline’s In Flight Entertainment, interviewed for a nationally syndicated music and arts magazine. The last two things happened right before the split. It does seem that when we are poised to take Ockham’s Razor to the next level, whatever that is, we implode.
If Wolves in the Walls is crumbling remains of the Tower of Babel, Job’s Comforter is ‘like an apple tree amongst the trees of the forest’ and I ‘delight to sit in his shade.’
While we aren’t finished with the last few recordings and I hate commenting too much on anything until it’s finished lest I curse and jinx it and it all ends up going terribly, terribly wrong, this has been (so far) the easiest record to make.
The sessions have gone by so smoothly comparative to ‘Wolves’ that I find myself sitting back and blinking at how incredible it is to record an album and not have something come along and shove a spanner in the works. As it stands, at the moment we have only one more guitar pass, vocals for one song, another fiddle pass, a mandolin pass, and them the ambient sounds that help tie everything together to record and then that’s it! We’re right on target time wise, and as recording starts winding down we’ve turned our heads to the artwork.
It seems to me that I’m happier with each album’s artwork just a little more than the previous record. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not terribly pleased with Ten Thousand Miles to Bedlam. Live and Well is much better, and Wolves is awesome. Job’s Comforter is becoming quite the little art project.
Kitty, Danny, Scott, and I had a meeting regarding the look of the album and what sort of theme that it should artistically have and we came up with something I am genuinely excited about. In the essence of diplomacy, we ran it by Dan and Tommy a few nights later and they readily agreed.
I'm not a deeply religious person but consider myself spiritual. I never really went to church but sort of went about learning the Bible on my own and coming up with my own interpretation of what are, to me, the basic rules of conduct.
I might not (seldom do) live up to even my own theological beliefs but I try, and that's the main thing. I have always had this (entirely personal) belief that you can't really be a singer without having some sort of faith. Every song is a prayer in its own way, whether it be about taking a trip on a ferry and praying that you make the journey safely or that you end up snogging the person you've had your eye on all night. It's all relative, and fundamentally intrinsic to one’s own perception of theology, religion, and spirituality.
And it is to faith and theology that we looked when trying to find the correct artwork for the record. We took a look at each song and determined to which saint it was evocative, and paired it appropriately. I am very excited about seeing the final product.
We’re in final days before everything is finalized and sent out into the world to become part of the ether, to join “Evangeline,” Maudelyn of “Ten Thousand Miles to Bedlam,” and Canis Lupis of “Wolves in the Walls.”
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts in regards to the entire project. I hope you will be as inspired by it and excited about it as I am
There have been experiences that have shaped this belief. When I moved to Seattle, for instance. It was a thought I had in December 2002 and in March 2003, I boarded a plane and 7 hours later landed in the Pacific Northwest and started on my way. Yes, my first year here was a series of trips and stumbles, but it was an easy decision to make to move here and while not precisely easy to make my way, it hasn’t been an uphill climb either.
Sure there have been pitfalls, but I’m beginning to stray from my original intent, something I’m wont to do when writing.
Ten Thousand Miles to Bedlam was an easy record to make. After the first recording session that seemed to go so terribly bad (only one track recorded that day out of five ended up being used – “Gravel Walk”) the rest of those recording sessions went smoothly and in the end we had our first fully realized album.
Wolves in the Walls was not an easy album to make. We started recording the album in the summer of 2009. We didn’t finish until the following summer, and had scrapped everything that we’d tracked in 2009 and a lot of everything from 2010. In fact, the great meat of that record got recorded two months before its release. It was a wild, frantic beast of an album, written about the hardest year of my life, recorded with volatile guys whose passions are only equaled by their talents.
I was sort of finished after that record. I love it; I think of it fondly, but it exhausted me. The tour afterward exhausted me. The year afterward exhausted me, and after that final show at the 2011 Northwest Folklife Festival where we played for an hour to an audience that never got off their feet and it seemed that all we could do was rise up, up, up… we crumbled.
Relationships between bandmates were tense and frankly, abusive. We all said and did some terrible things. We were critical to a degree where the only viable decision was to walk away from a slowly rising progression: two critically lauded recordings, three successful tours, being featured on Alaska Airline’s In Flight Entertainment, interviewed for a nationally syndicated music and arts magazine. The last two things happened right before the split. It does seem that when we are poised to take Ockham’s Razor to the next level, whatever that is, we implode.
If Wolves in the Walls is crumbling remains of the Tower of Babel, Job’s Comforter is ‘like an apple tree amongst the trees of the forest’ and I ‘delight to sit in his shade.’
While we aren’t finished with the last few recordings and I hate commenting too much on anything until it’s finished lest I curse and jinx it and it all ends up going terribly, terribly wrong, this has been (so far) the easiest record to make.
The sessions have gone by so smoothly comparative to ‘Wolves’ that I find myself sitting back and blinking at how incredible it is to record an album and not have something come along and shove a spanner in the works. As it stands, at the moment we have only one more guitar pass, vocals for one song, another fiddle pass, a mandolin pass, and them the ambient sounds that help tie everything together to record and then that’s it! We’re right on target time wise, and as recording starts winding down we’ve turned our heads to the artwork.
It seems to me that I’m happier with each album’s artwork just a little more than the previous record. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not terribly pleased with Ten Thousand Miles to Bedlam. Live and Well is much better, and Wolves is awesome. Job’s Comforter is becoming quite the little art project.
Kitty, Danny, Scott, and I had a meeting regarding the look of the album and what sort of theme that it should artistically have and we came up with something I am genuinely excited about. In the essence of diplomacy, we ran it by Dan and Tommy a few nights later and they readily agreed.
I'm not a deeply religious person but consider myself spiritual. I never really went to church but sort of went about learning the Bible on my own and coming up with my own interpretation of what are, to me, the basic rules of conduct.
I might not (seldom do) live up to even my own theological beliefs but I try, and that's the main thing. I have always had this (entirely personal) belief that you can't really be a singer without having some sort of faith. Every song is a prayer in its own way, whether it be about taking a trip on a ferry and praying that you make the journey safely or that you end up snogging the person you've had your eye on all night. It's all relative, and fundamentally intrinsic to one’s own perception of theology, religion, and spirituality.
And it is to faith and theology that we looked when trying to find the correct artwork for the record. We took a look at each song and determined to which saint it was evocative, and paired it appropriately. I am very excited about seeing the final product.
We’re in final days before everything is finalized and sent out into the world to become part of the ether, to join “Evangeline,” Maudelyn of “Ten Thousand Miles to Bedlam,” and Canis Lupis of “Wolves in the Walls.”
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts in regards to the entire project. I hope you will be as inspired by it and excited about it as I am