This all was recorded sometime in 2001. I think the intent was a 7 inch single on Sly. I honestly can’t remember why these were buried. Eric produced and recorded this and Matt Fargo was lurking most of this weekend like a stepdaddy. All of these ended up being re-recorded with Mike Lastra @ Smegma but these capture these songs at a great point. The biggest difference to me is the pace. They are much more controlled and slower. This experience was what I always pictured recording as a band to be like growing up. A massive sleepover weekend with your best friends complete with shots and beers, laughing, crying, calling in sick to work to make the schedule work, pizza and sleeping on floors and couches.

We were starting to write songs that I felt had some really interesting choices. I always got excited when I thought our voice or style was getting fleshed out. Nick always made different choices. He has an ability to take the a path I wouldn’t have expected.

I remember the day Nick brought Breathing Fire to a practice session at Mr Johnsons old house in South Salem and being so excited by the sound of it and the structure. I think the middle part we came up with as a group, we weren’t always into ‘jamming’ in the traditional sense but I think this came from some improv work. Becki’s vocals sound so great on this, reminds me of similar vibe we had on X, ghostly and ethereal. You can hear Nick singing on this too. And Doug’s drums are drenched in reverb to pretty cool effect. The chug of that distorted bass. I think the Pixies vibe on this is awesome too.

Country Song is my successful attempt to get another toy instrument in our songs. I don’t recall if the others thought I was nuts for it or if they were even in favor. We should get some serious guy/girl ballad points for this song. I think I hoped it would like land as an indie Meatloaf ballad or something. This is the song that I feel was most evolving from this point until it was recorded for “How Come…”. We played it a lot live and built a lot of confidence through that. Doug’s huge solo in the last third is one of my favorite things ever, be it live or on record.

For First Grade, I am still not sure why we didn’t record this for Wannabe Renegades, it’s very of that era…. it could have been our third or fourth song we wrote. Maybe I had some dumb notion about the seriousness of it lyrically or something. Probably overthinking for a song that clocks in at under a minute and a half. I did that a lot. Eric did this amazing trick to the vocal part in post with the last verse and helped me double up the vocal parts which was a first for me. We started playing it live like that from then on. Eric did some great nudging through the years I was always thankful for.

Thanks to all those who kept listening over the years.

- David