Perfect:
This is the first song since working class dog without any keyboards on it!!!! (sorry Derek..hey he sang great on it). It was one of those songs that I wrote the verse and then wanted to keep the same chord progression for the chorus and bridge so it would flow. It was kind of the blue print for a bunch of other songs on the album as far as the approach and feel goes. It's about wanting to be the perfect one for someone, knowing full well that it's just not possible. Also it has elements of not really dealing with that realization too well.


A bit of that religious imagery that I like so much I said 'Axe-ecution' on the demo but I meant 'execution' Bucky liked it so I sang it that way on the final.
Hey who is that playing his own guitar solos again? A friend of one of my son Liam (James) came in and put the 'helicopter' drums on in the bridge. There are so many talented kids out there. This was the hardest song to mix. We had 3 shots at it!!! (A first for me.)



I'll make you happy:
Aha, the old cover tunes. I do like the old songs. This is the only song I didn't write and it's from 1965 or thereabouts. Originally by an Aussie band called the Easybeats (Friday on my mind). It was one of my favorite songs as a kid in Australia and I remember trying to slow dance to it with my first 'real' girlfriend (Tania). It wasn't an easy song to slow dance to.


I revved the song up a bit but it's basically the same song. We will be doing this one live!!! There is a car crash and breaking glass in there if you listen closely. And Bucky sang on the bridge with us (we called that bit the Jewish lament).And...just when you think it's over ..it's not.


We couldn't get the 'whooooo' bits in the second last chorus to sound right so I lifted them off the demo.



Will I?
What can I say... a song of longing and needing to belong. Damn, I hate it when that happens. Lots of guitar on this but most of the songs follow the demos pretty closely.


Who is that whacked out guy talking at the start of the song?? Matty didn't understand why I sang "it is what it is" after the chorus line but it made sense to me so I left it in. Does the solo sound vaguely '80's'? Well I meant it.


And another sound bite at the end. These are all people I know and yes I have their permission. That's Derek on the strings in the background



God Gave you to everyone:
This is a pretty intricate little song for all of its 2 minutes and 50 seconds.


I did the demo and then Jeff Moskow (who was with us in the studio and through the whole process) suggested changing the arrangement a bit. He switched some parts around and did a little home edit on the demo and there were some mistakes in the edit that I liked and so we played the mistakes on the final version. The chords going into the chorus weren't supposed to be there but they were left over from an old part of the song in the edit and it worked.


This song is about... ah I hate talking about what they're about....it's about the person who feels that the rules of a relationship are for the other person only. Again, I hate it when that happens. Do I hear a little snippet of an old Beatles track in the cacophony somewhere? No must be my imagination.


Listen to Rodger on this. He played so great.
And the 'Domino' reference is NOT about pizza! Matt came in and redid the bass in the choruses after I'd done the vocal because I thought it needed to have more energy. The bastard did it in one take! God he's good.



Idontwantanythingfromyou:
This is the first one we started doing live because it seemed like it would be so much fun to play. It was. The attitude is appropriately pissed off and there are one or two guitars on the track!!


This is one of the 'anger' songs (okay, maybe there's a disproportionate amount of 'anger' songs on the record).


The title says what it's about ( although I elucidate further in the context of the song).This was one that I think we got in the first take . Probably because we'd done it a few times live already. It just went together really easily.


The words on this changed a bit from when we stared first doing it live. Bucky's favorite line......"You happy with your little freak show?"



Jesus saves:
This is Jason Batchko on the front of this. He's a friend of ours who drives telemarketers crazy. When they call him up to sell him credit cards or magazines he keeps them on the line for 30 minutes at a time and makes all this weird stuff up until they are begging to get off the phone. (Link: www.sohappyyoucalled.com)


This is one of his little gems that I put to a 'circus' version of the main riff in the song. The riff I had in my head for a while and was looking for the right words. I don't know if I found them but 'Jesus saves white trash like you' certainly matches the energy of the track.


That's Derek on my old Emulator keyboard (yes it's from the 80's) playing the Eastern string line. I have a bunch of old gear that i still love though it's temperamental and hard to use at times.


The song kind of speaks for itself.



Beautiful you:
This is a song of longing (again?) Sorry.


I wanted to switch the soft verse, loud chorus thing so I did the reverse on this one, making the verse have the guitars and making the chorus a bit more laid back. This was another one that fell into place and was easy to record.


I used the big white Gretsch Falcon (the guitar I used in the ' Intergalactic circus' section in EFX) on this song and in the solo. I used it quite a bit on this record along with my son Liam's Les Paul (which sounded better than any of the other Les Pauls we had in there) and my old Gibson SG that I bought new in 1969...Wow!!!!!!!!! (That's scary).



Wasted:
I was messing round (before we started recording) with my acoustic guitar, running the song down in the studio and Matty had a room microphone on and was recording when I did this bit at the start. I liked the way it sounded (footsteps and all) so we edited it onto the front of Wasted.


This is about having it and throwing it away. Been there/ done that.


I had 4 complete attempts at the lead vocal on this song. We just weren't happy with it. I eventually got it (I think).



Shoot Your Guru:
The first instrumental since SFO (SFO?) off Hard to Hold.
I played this on my old Gibson J45 (from the 50's) that I am in love with. It's such a sweet guitar. I usually come up with titles first but didn't have one for this until we were done recording. After we added the sitar and the string line, it seemed appropriate.


I hope I don't offend anyone with the title.. but if I do.. good.



Alien Virus:
This was an experiment in the middle of the writing sessions. I wanted to do something different and this is what happened. This is the demo I recorded in my house up in Vegas while I was doing EFX. We liked it so much we didn't re record it. It has a roughness that I like.


This contains one of the references to my favourite movie (2001: A Space Odyssey) that are on this record. Flying back and forth between Vegas and LA every week I kept seeing all these 'alien' toys and T shirts and signs at the Vegas airport (because of 'Area 51' out there) and I think they crawled into my subconscious.



Angels of the Disappeared:
This went through some changes. it was originally recorded with the full band with guitars and all at the end, a big finish. When I got set to do the vocal, it didn't feel right. Rodger said we should do it with just guitar and voice. So I went out and played the guitar in one take and then sang it and it worked so much better. It made it less dramatic and because of the subject matter, it helped it.


Inspired by ' The lovely bones' and Elizabeth Smarts disappearance. I wrote the chorus ("Welcome home") before she was found. It felt like a prayer when I wrote it.


And yes that's one of my sons as a baby at the very end saying 'I love you'.


I'm such a sap.



Eden:
A song of hope (at last). I had the string line done and sang around it for a week or two before I was happy with the melody. it actually stared off as another song. One written by a friend of mine in Oz. But it was an older song and I kept messing with it trying to make it sound more current and by the time I was done I'd written a completely different song.


It's one of those vocal 'rounds' that I started experimenting with on the Sahara Snow record. Layering several different vocal parts around one another.



The Invisible girl:
This song went through the most changes of any of them. I completely rewrote the verse from the demo and changed the instrumentation and tempo. Even the key.


That's Tank E. Boy, Rodgers sweet, late, pup at the start of the song. It's a song about self delusion.


And yes the Jessie's Girl bit was intentional.
Sometimes I wish I was invisible.


My Depression:
My 3 minute autobiography. I wanted to see if I could fit the first 40 into a 3 minute pop song. I could.


I had scraps of paper all over the house while I was writing this. I could have made it 30 minutes long but it had to be 3 minutes to make the pop song mark!!!


I hope I get to write part 2.


There is a sexual component to this.


Jeff M loved the scream at the end so we left it in. Thanks to Matt for his great vocal ideas all over this record but especially on this one.



Your Psychopathic mother:
Who is playing that awesome Spanish guitar? It's Davey. I hogged the guitar on this record but Davey played this so great. This idea actually came from a friend of mines relationship to her parents.


To protect everyone's privacy, that's all I'll say.


Except that my ideal way to live is 'here, right now'. Unfortunately I'm light years from that at the moment, but there is hope. This song is about living in the past and the future, something I do too much.


Denial?


Every night I wake up screaming:
This is the only one that isn't about a one to one relationship. It's about fear and the future. I used to get so freaked out about our future but I figure that some of us will adapt to the new environment we're making and continue (Not that I necessarily think that's the best idea).


It certainly seems like the end of days at times but I think the Matrix was right.. we are the virus and I really think we will be the last species to go (we could even outlast the cockroach...who, by the way would survive radioactive contamination).


This song pretty much fell together. One of my son Josh's friends (Dhruv) is the kid screaming behind me in the choruses.


Open my eyes:
Always the song to end this album. It was a part of 'Screaming' because I wanted to feel like there was something positive after that song.


My J45 guitar and Matt and I did all the vocals.