Ready To Rock and Influences

I had the standard wednesday "I'm ready to rock" conversation with Peach yesterday. I also did with Josh. Mid-week before a show is always exciting. I ready to give it a go. Alot of pent up engery just waiting to be unleashed onto the world.

I have a variety of influences. Some are obvious, some are not. Some are hidden and buried deep, others come right at you. Daniel Rice asked me what influenced the idea of the history album the most and I had a hard time explaining it.

I guess I've always wanted to do this. But for those of you who don't know, I worked on a Zelda themed album for a long time. I wrote close to 5 songs for this thing. Only two were recorded, and only 4 were ever played live. I gave this up when I was living in Nashville. I had the worst writers block and really wanted to give up on music. A Zelda record was not going to fly no matter how much thought I put into it. Afterall, I was creating my own story and using the characters and events of the game in my own way. That made it harder. I guess maybe one day i could pick it back up and I have thought about it, but I've got so many history songs to write and on top of that, in the middle of all this, i've been sketching out songs that aren't history songs. Too many songs to worry about an old project, but...this go around seems to be a lot easier and more challenging. I'm having to be a little more organized. Plus I have three other dudes here to help make my vision come true.Four is better, it's also a good number.

Without that experience, I probably could not do this record. This history concept is a little more straight forward but through the eyes of other people and events, I am able to tell the story I want to tell and defend my thesis. It's like a history paper, the evolution of american culture told through humor and song. I have put alot of thought into all this, more than any other musical endeavor. I really enjoy concept albums, but  mostly concept albums that have a centralized theme, buried or straight up in your face.

The Frogs album Racially Yours is almost like a history album. I have been extremely inlfuenced by it. It chronicles racism down to a timeline. It's more about human struggle and learning to live each other, peacefully. regardless of skin color, language, or beliefs. It also paints the picture that in the end, who are the real racists? It is told from both points of view....

I look at that and marvel at it's greatness, there are many touchy subjects but the message is clear. You can't deny our cultural past, you can just learn from it.

Our listeners will learn from our album. They will see the importance of the people, events, and era's we sing about. It all comes together to show that you must not deny your past, you have to face it in order to move into the future. Election:1800 is a good example of this. If you don't look at the past, the same out come will occur. I still find in ironic that after 200 years, we still fumble around with electing leaders.

That is all for now...