Listen - EP
Lyrics
Story
I have been writing and recording songs on my own for most of my life but had really not been doing anything with the music for various reasons. When I was younger and in bands I always felt responsible for coming up with new ideas so I actually worked on coming up with and finishing songs. On my own I never felt pressure so I would let things pile up unfinished, sometimes for years.
I moved to Los Angeles at the very end of 2013 and didn’t really think about working on music the first few years I was out there and then suddenly in 2015 I really got the desire to start doing it again. Of the four originals on the EP three of them were already written, “Seconds” just came to me one morning, and I had the track mostly done in a day or two. I was living in a one-room apartment with the girl I moved out to Los Angeles with, our dog Olive Love, and our two cats (who shall remain unnamed not because they were not loved as much as Olive, but because I do not want to be ridiculed for their names). I sat on a large pillow on the floor with my laptop on a coffee table and recorded all of the tracks with the exception of the drums (on most days Olive would be sitting on the pillow behind me).
For the drums I used a feature of Logic Pro which at the time I believe was called “Drummers” (don’t quote me on that) which was a pretty great way to get good sounding drums for people that could not afford to go into a studio and record drums. It was very customizable and after I would get a basic track that I liked I would convert it to MIDI and further edit it to get it as close to what I heard in my head as possible. Drums were the first instrument I ever wanted to play and while I would never call myself a drummer, I can convince most people that don’t know what good drumming sounds like that I know what I am doing. When I was working on the drums for the EP it was very important to me that all of the drum parts were something I could actually play on the drums.
I would usually work on one song until I finished it, I am guessing each song for this EP took no more than a few days. I really wanted the EP to be five tracks so after I had the four original songs completed I thought about what I could add for a fifth song and realized pretty quickly that Ceremony would be the perfect track to add. It was the first song I ever learned how to play from beginning to end (thank you Jason Fraser for making me learn it), and was really the beginning of my being in bands and writing music.
To be continued…
Thanks
since I have unlimited space, can change this as often as I would like, and since this is my first EP I am going to go back and thank everybody that has been a part of my musical life, and anybody and everybody that helped me get this record made. So here we go in no particular order: First my mother for her pure love and belief that I was special. My father for fanning the flames of my passion for music. My brother for introducing me to the cool music that set the foundation for everything else, especially the Sex Pistols. My Tia. Sharon and Tom Fraser. Jason Fraser for introducing me to some of the bands that would influence me for the rest of my life. Brit Murray for being a part of the early madness. Mike Schwahn for having more faith in me than I probably deserved. Josh Larson for inspiring me (still to this day). Victor Bieganek for... there is not enough space here really. Derik Newman. Erik Fratzke. Susie. Dyan for the love and inspiration. Ray Hayward. Miss Kim. Mere, Henry, and Owen. AS. Merethe, Michael, Mike, Richard, and Albert. Suzzy. Audrey Anderson. Annie. Joel Sundseth, Dr. Pauly, and Dr. Crittenden. JR. Steve Karras, Mr. Andy. John Burke. Calvin. Natalie, Mia, Jack, and Uncle Jimmy.
And anybody that read all of this, and that actually Listens.