It’s been more than six months since my last post. During that period, a couple of pretty important things have happened, and I’d like to share them with you, but I also don’t want to ask you to read seven pages worth of blog, so I’ll break it up over a few days. Ergo, here is:
On Friday, May 13th, we released Adams Wilson’s third album, entitled, “Everything We Know...” For those of you who are only recently familiar with the band, you might think, “hey that’s cool, but really no big deal.” However, if you’ve been around since the old days (waaaaay back in 2007), you might know that it’s taken us around three years to put some new material out there. You may also think that’s pretty weird, considering the fact that we are writing new songs CONSTANTLY.
I have some pretty pretentious artisty stuff I’d like to share about the album itself, so if you’re into that, read on, but if you’re someone who’s more interested in lighter reading, maybe check in again tomorrow.
You may have noticed that the phrase “Everything We Know...” does not appear in the lyrics on the album. The title occurred to me very late in the process of making the record... during the mix phase, after everything was already recorded, so yeah, I didn’t really have an option there. In any case, the title has two distinct meanings for me, and I’d like to share them both.
Meaning #1: In order to make sense of this meaning, you need a little history. As I said, it’s been about three years since we finished “My Best Guess,” with nothing to show for it since then. That’s a kick in my teeth every time I think about it. Why? Well, I’m a bit of a workaholic, and it wasn’t like we were sitting around staring at each other saying, “gee I wish we had more songs.” Quite the opposite. We recorded an entire album with our buddy Ken and then shelved it, largely due to losing our drummer, Josh, and gaining a new drummer, Darren, in the middle of that process.
On top of that, in between recording the “Ken sessions,” I recorded two albums’ worth of acoustic demos, which I’ve called, “This Ship Was Meant for Sinking,” and “The Wars We Wage.” None of those songs have been released, and only about half of the songs from the Ken Sessions made it onto “Everything We Know...” We wrote five new songs AFTER we shelved the project. Are you getting an idea of just how much work we were doing during this period? With no actual finished product to point to? This is all while playing a few shows a month, and working full-time jobs, and having families.
So, that catches you up to Summer of 2010. At that time, we had spent a lot of energy, and all our money, on the Ken Sessions, and had decided that if we were going to do any more recording, we were going to do it ourselves. And that’s exactly how it played out. “Everything We Know...” was written entirely by us, recorded by us, in a studio space we put together, and edited by us. We did the artwork. We wrote the lyrics. It literally was, EVERYTHING WE KN(E)W how to do. It is a few months of our lives encoded onto a plastic disc. If the album sucks or succeeds, it is entirely our fault. There is no producer to blame. No engineer or studio to point at for choices made. It’s entirely in our hands. That’s meaning #1.
Meaning #2: To understand this meaning, you have to pay attention to the ellipses at the end of the title. The title that I wanted to use for this album, but did not, thanks to the wise advice of those closest to me, is, “Everything We Know... is {Meaningless}.” There’s another word that goes in between those brackets that I’ll just leave to your imagination. This is an all-ages blog after all.
Looking back on it now, I would like to think that “Irrelevant Truth” was about realizing that different people have different ideas of what is important, different meanings of the same words. I’d spent the majority of my life believing that everyone should believe the same thing... that there was very little room for doubt or differing opinions. I was going through the process of discovering that, for one person, a given idea might be worth dying for, or at least worth dedicating your life to, but to someone else, it may be total nonsense. I was struggling with that. Re-read some of the lyrics from “IT” with that in mind and see if that colors your experience.
“My Best Guess” was more of a mourning process. I’d given up a lot of the things I’d once defined myself by, and I was figuring out my own new definition of what was important, and what wasn’t. I was shedding a lot of skin at that point, and in a hurry, and some of that took the form of anger or bitterness (Dear Jesus, Blackout), and some of it came out as catharsis (This is Me Smiling, Just Another Song).
“This Ship Was Meant for Sinking” and “The Wars We Wage” have only been heard by three or four people to my knowledge. The lyrics aren’t posted anywhere, so all I will say about them is that they’re pretty dark and heavy. They represent a pretty rough patch of time, and if you were to listen to the songs individually, you might not pick up on that, but if you put them all together, you might need medication.
“Everything We Know...” is me having my mind explode. It’s me realizing that there is a grander scale at work than we can ever fully appreciate. I was discovering a lot about science and the way we understand ourselves, our world, and our universe. At the VERY bottom of that infinite pile is me saying, “whoa.” Some of that comes out as epicurianism (Devil’s Wife, 100 Mile Wind, Say What You Will), and some of it plays out as discovery (Find Myself Believing, Wide Awake). Some of it is just about the process of change itself (If You Wanna Run, Bleed, Dead Leaves, Somehow, Another Night).
For both meanings, there’s a lot of “me” and “us” in there. Don’t let that limit your experience. If you dig the lyrics, and/or the music, and you want to take things in your own way, please do, and please ignore everything I’ve said. I don’t want this to be “MY” thing/experience/process. It should be “OURS.”
The Last Six Months
Part 1
A New Album
Part 1
A New Album
On Friday, May 13th, we released Adams Wilson’s third album, entitled, “Everything We Know...” For those of you who are only recently familiar with the band, you might think, “hey that’s cool, but really no big deal.” However, if you’ve been around since the old days (waaaaay back in 2007), you might know that it’s taken us around three years to put some new material out there. You may also think that’s pretty weird, considering the fact that we are writing new songs CONSTANTLY.
I have some pretty pretentious artisty stuff I’d like to share about the album itself, so if you’re into that, read on, but if you’re someone who’s more interested in lighter reading, maybe check in again tomorrow.
You may have noticed that the phrase “Everything We Know...” does not appear in the lyrics on the album. The title occurred to me very late in the process of making the record... during the mix phase, after everything was already recorded, so yeah, I didn’t really have an option there. In any case, the title has two distinct meanings for me, and I’d like to share them both.
Meaning #1: In order to make sense of this meaning, you need a little history. As I said, it’s been about three years since we finished “My Best Guess,” with nothing to show for it since then. That’s a kick in my teeth every time I think about it. Why? Well, I’m a bit of a workaholic, and it wasn’t like we were sitting around staring at each other saying, “gee I wish we had more songs.” Quite the opposite. We recorded an entire album with our buddy Ken and then shelved it, largely due to losing our drummer, Josh, and gaining a new drummer, Darren, in the middle of that process.
On top of that, in between recording the “Ken sessions,” I recorded two albums’ worth of acoustic demos, which I’ve called, “This Ship Was Meant for Sinking,” and “The Wars We Wage.” None of those songs have been released, and only about half of the songs from the Ken Sessions made it onto “Everything We Know...” We wrote five new songs AFTER we shelved the project. Are you getting an idea of just how much work we were doing during this period? With no actual finished product to point to? This is all while playing a few shows a month, and working full-time jobs, and having families.
So, that catches you up to Summer of 2010. At that time, we had spent a lot of energy, and all our money, on the Ken Sessions, and had decided that if we were going to do any more recording, we were going to do it ourselves. And that’s exactly how it played out. “Everything We Know...” was written entirely by us, recorded by us, in a studio space we put together, and edited by us. We did the artwork. We wrote the lyrics. It literally was, EVERYTHING WE KN(E)W how to do. It is a few months of our lives encoded onto a plastic disc. If the album sucks or succeeds, it is entirely our fault. There is no producer to blame. No engineer or studio to point at for choices made. It’s entirely in our hands. That’s meaning #1.
Meaning #2: To understand this meaning, you have to pay attention to the ellipses at the end of the title. The title that I wanted to use for this album, but did not, thanks to the wise advice of those closest to me, is, “Everything We Know... is {Meaningless}.” There’s another word that goes in between those brackets that I’ll just leave to your imagination. This is an all-ages blog after all.
Looking back on it now, I would like to think that “Irrelevant Truth” was about realizing that different people have different ideas of what is important, different meanings of the same words. I’d spent the majority of my life believing that everyone should believe the same thing... that there was very little room for doubt or differing opinions. I was going through the process of discovering that, for one person, a given idea might be worth dying for, or at least worth dedicating your life to, but to someone else, it may be total nonsense. I was struggling with that. Re-read some of the lyrics from “IT” with that in mind and see if that colors your experience.
“My Best Guess” was more of a mourning process. I’d given up a lot of the things I’d once defined myself by, and I was figuring out my own new definition of what was important, and what wasn’t. I was shedding a lot of skin at that point, and in a hurry, and some of that took the form of anger or bitterness (Dear Jesus, Blackout), and some of it came out as catharsis (This is Me Smiling, Just Another Song).
“This Ship Was Meant for Sinking” and “The Wars We Wage” have only been heard by three or four people to my knowledge. The lyrics aren’t posted anywhere, so all I will say about them is that they’re pretty dark and heavy. They represent a pretty rough patch of time, and if you were to listen to the songs individually, you might not pick up on that, but if you put them all together, you might need medication.
“Everything We Know...” is me having my mind explode. It’s me realizing that there is a grander scale at work than we can ever fully appreciate. I was discovering a lot about science and the way we understand ourselves, our world, and our universe. At the VERY bottom of that infinite pile is me saying, “whoa.” Some of that comes out as epicurianism (Devil’s Wife, 100 Mile Wind, Say What You Will), and some of it plays out as discovery (Find Myself Believing, Wide Awake). Some of it is just about the process of change itself (If You Wanna Run, Bleed, Dead Leaves, Somehow, Another Night).
For both meanings, there’s a lot of “me” and “us” in there. Don’t let that limit your experience. If you dig the lyrics, and/or the music, and you want to take things in your own way, please do, and please ignore everything I’ve said. I don’t want this to be “MY” thing/experience/process. It should be “OURS.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment