Five Fingers

Here we go
Pop your skull -- off the air, lose control
Get up and go
Five fingers, one of them lets you know

I can't take credit for that. It's one of the verses from the new Matthew Good song called, "Oh, Be Joyful." It's a new track he added to his best of called In a Coma. Generally I hate the presumption of people adding a new track to their best of collections. Isn't it a touch arrogant? However, in this case I'll happily allow it. It's a great new tune. And Matt Good is one of those guys who slipped through the cracks of my record collection. As I listened to track after track on the best of, I remembered that this cat can write some pretty kick ass tunes.

But to the lyric. "Five fingers, one of them lets you know." I love the simplicity and poetry in that. Sometimes less is more, right? We've been talking a great deal about that in the band. The very talented (experienced, kind, thoughtful and insightful) producer we've just started working with was trying to explain to us that we make our music too 'interesting'. It's what happens when you get four musicians that all have egos and want to be heard into the same room. The song gets cluttered and instead of listening to one melody at a time, you're listening to four simultaneously. It was an interesting point that none of us had been able to put our finger on. No one did it consciously. But we all did it. Instead of telling one story together, we're telling four stories simultaneously. That's got to be confusing and difficult for an audience.

And so, we've been working very hard on stripping our old songs down and putting them back together as a band. Not as four guys who all have cool ideas on what riff we should play here and there. We're all learning to step back and say, 'Listen to Len now,' or, 'I shouldn't play a thing, so everyone can hear Mick's part.' It's challenging. To pick and choose the focal point of every second of every song. Actually, it's fucking hard. Some of these songs were written long ago by just one of the four people that are now trying to pull it apart and make it better. It's amazing how hard it is to let go of the past. I have a long history of not being good at letting things go. I remember all the people who have hurt me and I remember all of the people who have taken a proverbial bullet for me. Maybe that shouldn't be applicable to my art, but it is. It's just a character trait that's built into me. And so it's hard to let go of some of these songs as they stood. But gratifying at the same time. Perhaps it's how a parent feels. You work so, so, so hard to put them (kids or songs) together the way you think you're supposed to, but at some point you have to let them loose and allow the rest of the world to continue to shape what you so carefully arranged. And all you can do is hope it works out.

That's where I'm at now. And it's why I've been up and down in the past few months. Imagine all the work you've done up to this point in your life - years of planning and building and painting and shaping - being reduced to a pile of rubble. All because one man comes in and says, "Yeahhhh, it's alright. Actually, it's good...but don't you think you can do it better?" And as much as you want to give that guy the one finger that lets him know, you know in your heart that he's right. But it's hard to let go and it's harder to start over. But the boys and I have decided to try and go the distance and so you do what you have to do. We're rolling up the sleeves, digging in and coming out of this year with a shitload of great new songs and kick-ass old tunes.

No more doubt. No more looking back. No more regrets.

Here we go.