A Long Trip Home

I'm going to tell you about a trip when our friend Jack drove the three of us through a long western night; determined to get us all home in one 35 hr go.

The first hours were the easiest.

No matter how tough or grueling a tour is, I always get a boost when we leave our final hotel. So it's no thing to pass 8 - 12 hours trading playlists on our phones and burning pavement. But at the 16th hour, just barely approaching halfway, that feeling turns into something else. Some new kind of exhaustion. Cause I know the only thing between home and me is time.

"Why don't you get some sleep? You can rotate back in the morning," Abe said jumping from the backseat up next to me on the middle bench.

He caught me in a bit of a daze, lost in the green numbers of the radio. "Did you rest?" I asked crawling to the back.

He shook his head, "enough. I'm ready to get driving though."

I fumbled over in the dark: clearing the bench, taking off my shoes. I could feel the tunnel vision hitting me. To make it worse all the caffeine had worn off and my body was coming down.

Looping around America the band had done 6 weeks of heavy touring. Up the east, then west through the north, occasionally popping up into Canada, we finished with a night in Seattle and one in Vancouver. So why we decided to do this drive straight through, I'm still not sure.

But like a good dream most of it seemed to fade with only flashes and fragments remaining. Good thoughts for another day, then all I wanted was silence.

3 to 5

My time to fell in and out of sleep as we slipped further away from the Vancouver, the last club, a really nice Holiday Inn that we didn't get to enjoy, the mountains, the tall pacific trees that are nothing like the brush of Texas, the desert, going south and south.

I closed my eyes.

The radio, the guys talking stories of future plans, the noise of the road; it all hung distantly on my consciousness pulling me awake.

I buried my face deeper into the back of the bench, feebly hiding away so I could try to sleep. I was tired. Really tired. I felt the weight of sleep taking over me. Pouring down the back of my brain, down into my chest flooding my lungs with it's gravity.

The other guys need noise to help them drive, you don't complain about things like that. It's an unspoken rule. I'd rather them blasting the speakers then have us all fall asleep while driving. We've had our close calls before, I don't care to relive that again. So I just listen to the road, slow my breathing and drift...

"Are you... Are you happy with this, the music?" Mom was reclined in her chair, a worn black leather massage station she'd bought for Dad many Christmases before. In her corner of the bedroom, two steps from her pillow. A place to watch TV, look out the window, and drift into a nap when nausea or insomnia kicked in.

"Of course," why was I remembering this moment? Lying on her bed, watching For A Few Dollars More, she had fallen asleep early on. I hadn't noticed her waking up, "it's not easy, but it's still fun," I said watching the desert and the steel eyes looking back at me.

"I used to think," she started, then stopped herself at the sounds of gunfire and cowboy groans. Her head rolled to the window. Mom never liked violence. It wasn't so much the killing, she told me, but the way he smiled afterwards that bugged her.

There was a bump in the road that jolted my body. And laughing from the front. The crackling foil of an empty gas station snack. The engine let open, pushing harder as we started rolling up hill. And I fought to keep level on the bench.

'Am I happy?'

The sound swell like the rising of sustained strings. A breath. A wave of violins. And down the road, bells breaking across the desert. The hum of her rollers gliding back and forth against her back.

The morning tinted by soft blue curtains broke around the floral scarf covering her head. Mom never changed for me. Her hair was gone. She had lost weight. Her skin had turned from olive to a pale white but it only made the green of her eyes stronger. Those were only superficial things. She was still as bright as ever.

"I used to think you get what you put in," she was looking back at me again and I lowered the TV to listen, "but things aren't balanced are they? Things aren't going to be fair for you."

I waited for her to continue as she looked me over, but she wanted me to share too.

"I don't know, the band's doing alright."

"You won't always be," she said understated like she was talking to herself, "I hear stories... You boys are talented, but that's not always enough...talent I mean... I worry."

"Every job has politics Mom... that's why you gotta enjoy what you do, right?" I smiled, turning the volume up again for the bang of timpani's, "if we weren't having fun... that'd be a different story."

"You can't feed a family with that René. You won't be ready." Such a Motherly thing to say. 

I remember the way my heart sank a little and felt it again.

The van slowly swung into a turn, as we slowed down for an exit. There was a jolt at the stop sign.

"A quick bathroom stop if anyone needs it," Jack whispered, unsure if I was sleeping, whipping the van into a spot under an orange light.

I kept still as the guys left the van running, locking me inside. And for a moment the van was quiet. I wanted to finish that dream, 'I am happy,' I wanted to tell her. 'Back to her room,' but my mind had other places to go.

The wind cut in over the water hitting my chest. I kept my jaw clenched tight, breathing between my teeth. Wishing I had brought a jacket or a least a long sleeve.

"I want to stay," Mom stood at the bank of the Guadalupe, in the smooth gravel, the ice cold water barely hitting her feet, "just a little longer. We don't have to eat here."

This. This memory. A weekend drive. We hadn't been ready for this trip. The whole family off on a whim, and the weather was cold, much colder than we planned. We had wanted to go tubing, but the water was low, and the wind was powerful.

"You might think right now that work matters, I know we've told you boys that, but it's the people. Of all the things I remember," she continued, "the things I want to remember, I never go back to my job. Sometimes I'm sorry I let it take so much of me," Mom kept her eyes on the drifting river.

"Mom," I walked up beside her, looking back, Jaime and Dad were at a fire pit working on getting a fire going.

The river was dancing with the sunlight, turning, jumping quickly on itself.

"You might think right now that work matters, I know we've told you boys that, but it's the people," Mom took a step into the cold water then another. "That's what I want you to keep. You should always do what makes you happy," She went deeper in, the water hitting at her knees, "When you're happy the others will follow."

I threw off my shoes, stepping in after her. And the river was so cold, so brilliant, instantly jumping up my body. I wanted to get out of the water. I wanted to head back, "Mom," I called but she was deep in her thought. The river felt like it was moving me away. Or pulling everything away from me. 

The song grew louder. The dancing lights flickered faster.

"Mom," I thought looking up at her in slow motion, like she was water, like she was light. She dove in the air. A slender flicker. Suspended above the river. Like all sound held on one note waiting for her to land. And the river pulling me down and down. 

"New Mexico... and coming up on sunrise," Abe said from the driver seat, "who's ready for breakfast?"

I sat up on the back bench. Feeling like the dream was still in my head, but every second disappearing. 

Jaime flipped through the GPS menu looking for a food stop, while Jack searched yelp on his phone.

The highway had tapered off into a narrow, winding two lane stretch. The sky was still dark purple, but I could feel the daylight coming. Soon the mountain sides would be splashed with the orange glow of dawn.

We were getting closer to home now. And only 14 hours to go. 

-rene

Let Me Go, The Insatiable Machine

morning paper, filled with nothing to say
silent paper or anything to look away
are you happy? if you are tell me so... or let me go
you're not silver, your tongue must be lead
it's not slipping, must be sleeping instead
are you happy, could you even begin? to let me in, let me go
Roaring quiet, so loud the neighbors can hear
Smoke intentions, so thick that nothing is clear,
are you happy? if you are tell me so, and let me go

A big part of being in a band is letting go. Above, I wrote the complete lyrics to illustrate what I let go for this song. The final version came from a change suggested by Dan, cutting down the words in order to fit the new vibe, and one I carried out. It wasn't easy to edit out half the story, but with the new tempo and feel of the song, it really was necessary.

Though the story suffers, the stomp is stronger for it, a balance I was more than willing to maintain. Of course I am happy with the way it came out, the feel is heavy, and moves like a well oiled machine tearing up the road underneath. But a part of me will always miss the fullness of the story, not that the meaning can't be felt in the final version, and in fact, in its edited disjointed version- the feeling of poor communication is perhaps even better understood.

Let Me Go is about communication. A narrator who can't tell his own story clearly, would definitely have a hard time communicating. To me, it's interesting how other people can influence what we produce. I can't help but wonder what the Wasteland would be like without Pound's input? - more importantly does it matter?

The final statement is the released one, I have a demo with the original lyrics, but that is only an artifact of the process not the result.

*

I've always felt that honest collaboration makes the best music, and a band, any band, should be a mixture of the people, not the ideals of one. A lot of times I have to put myself aside and let others do what they do.  

Sometimes it's a difficult dance, because there are somethings worth fighting for, artistic touches that should be expressed- but honestly most things aren't.

I don't know if science or psychology can back me up on this: I feel like the creative process is a machine. Like any machine it requires fuel. I prefer to run off of life-experience, and study...books, movies, music.. but it can be fed by anything or anyone. It is an insatiable machine, always thirsty for any bit of life it can suck down. 

The brain collects, I have felt drained/empty but never full, which tells me that more is never enough. It even collects subconsciously. Everything and everyone we encounter is up for grabs- be careful of who and what you surround yourself with because your creativity will be affected. 

Having extra people to springboard off of, to work with, seems to be some of the most potent fuel available. Even if it is an unused idea, different opinions help rapidly evolve a project in ways unimaginable to only one creator. We start off heading in one direction and before I know it the wheel is out of my hands, we are miles off the beaten path and I'm trying to look out a window and find out if this is a good place to be or not.

It's a frightening feeling, one some people can't handle. That is part of what makes songwriting in a group setting so explosive and powerful. And maybe why a lot of our favorite songwriters are actually teams of songwriters - examples are everywhere.

As scary as it is though, I will keep putting my words in the hands of my collaborators, walking a line of individual pride and group identity.

Sometimes it feels like giving away children, though only in my imagination...I have no children as of yet. It all comes down to trust. Do I trust my own opinion? Do I trust my friends? My band mates? My ego will continue to scream from every inch, "it's wrong, it's all wrong!" and "No!" but after a bit, it will quiet down its tantrum and go back to it usual nonsense. Letting me hear what is really happening and make a good decision on whether or not I actually liked my own idea to begin with.


listen to Let Me Go

Nothing needs explaining; to slave my words is vain
with each thought straining to what eyes take plain.
Then what do I have to add, that hasn't yet been told
in every showing inch clad, by passions now embold'?
What texts could I fashion, to accent the clever look-
every intent compassion, Nature carefully put?
You too know me by cloth,
Truth is not easily disguised,
betrayed & caught in suit where I hide

-rene


* image from: http://electricliterature.com/blog/2011/06/28/those-are-pearls-that-were-his-ipad-review-of-the-waste-land-app/

Doomsday, Echoing on

How I waited so long for this
melt into eternal bliss
steal me, break me down
while we are burning out
If it's a dream please don't say
I need to know you, doomsday


Imagine a moment when reality becomes so clear everything clouded and murky is wholly removed leaving only a feeling of completeness. In a beautifully violent moment, like seeing the black expanses of space after the world rips away from underneath. So unreal it might only seem like a dream, but my wait for this experience is the root of Doomsday.

Doomsday isn't a song about the literal end of the world, but the end of a thought. A spiritual moment when I lost an idea of myself. It is not a negative moment, though the song plays dark, but it is a jarring one. The unexpectedness of a realization can be frightening and tinted with sadness but it is also soothing. The change itself is beautiful.

Nothing ever so loud
than the silence after a cloud
darkness ain't never so black
to look inside all we lack
if it's a dream, please don't say
I need to know you, doomsday

Everyone has lost, and will continue to lose, but that doesn't make an interesting story. But what if I'd needed the loss? Waited for it. Anticipating. That was more unexpected to me. That was the part of the story that drew me. Wanting change. Loving it, because when life is altered so drastically, more of our self emerges. And that revelation can be devastating and blissful. Every moment that has brought what initially felt like an ending into my life: graduations, birthdays, relationships, deaths, has been an opportunity to learn change.

Doomsday wasn't originally as modern or synth-y as it came out, but I love the vibe. Dan really pushed the direction and he was right. The soundscape is beautiful. The song structure is folk-blues, with a warped solo for a bridge. Recently we have reworked the song for a three-piece and I have gotten to take over the solo duties, which is a lot of fun. The solo is brutal and destructive: mountains falling, volcanoes erupting and all the bombast. The falling chord progression underneath really carries emotion. The beat and the main riff are almost studio one-style, it is a bit of a mind trip to play and sing, but really fun once I start feeling and stop thinking about it.

*

How do you know when it's done? When is anything over? Events rarely erupt in one catalyzing moment that defines the future. Life moves slower. Dies slower. And also continues on, echoing on into the future. Giving another frame after the one before. The moment a relationship ends is usually not when we try to name or define it, but long before. In some unassuming look, or a careless word. A seed of doubt. A drop of poison. Growing. Quietly building strength, 'til the moment there is more doubt than trust. That tipping point, the closest thing we can call an end, is always unknown, but is the moment I was looking for. I don't think it is ever discoverable.

How I waited so long for you
faith, my soul, kept me true
even here, at times end,
it's true some faith must bend
if it's a dream please don't say
I need to know you, doomsday

The When... Now I'm sure that when is unimportant. Change is inevitable. I have to accept impermanence rather than resist it. It comes to my door like a stranger, on a day like any other. I don't need to worry about when or how, that is exhausting. The value in anticipating change comes from having an open heart. Not trying to shut it out, but welcoming it in. The character is ready, maybe a bit obsessively, but completely open.

As one moment ends, another comes in to take its place. And so moves on, being moved.

Do you know how many times we've cut out this weed?

Wrapping a hard fist over root...how many times it came back again?

I heard- less than you the have strength to pull it,

More than the hands to wrap around it again

-rene


*Image from: http://what-buddha-said.net/Pics/impermanence.of.body.jpg

Don't You Ever, Love Properly Digested

Darlin don't be like this
you know we're not on our own
I'll be a hold to your fits
this fighting's all that we know
If your not in the mood
you never have to pretend
with nothing to lose
more time to give you, more me to lend
Darlin don't be so dark
only missing things that they do
I've got a hunger and spark
tending them only for you
Let them burn in the air
watch it all trail away
make it easy to share
with nothing to prove, nothing to say...

I think Love is the most under appreciated topic in western music. I know that doesn't sound right... It is probably the most written about subject... it is even popular to have songs about how people are sick of love songs. But somehow, in it's overabundance we neglect interpretation. Often dismissing songs as merely love songs with no further need to investigate - There are a lot of songs where it is necessary not to over think, and I would do the same.

Sometimes I hear a song that resonates into a deeper meaning. Maybe it is a lack or fault in our modern language, that we do not have more specific and detailed words for Love's many aspects that are as conveniently lyrical (fondness, affection, lust), and so they all get grouped together. Probably the blame falls on both listener and writer, who have trapped each other into selling what the other wants, and wanting what the other's selling, but that is another post.

one of my all-time favorite songs ever,

and says more about love than other songs without any words

The kind of Love I was after in Don't You Ever, is a total-love. A compassionate altruistic love, closest to a non-religious Agape, and you can see why it is not a word with much lyrical-pop value. It has a clunky sound, with the "A" tumbling into the caught-in-the-throat "Ga" and the "Pe" tagged on just leaving the singer standing out in his look how smart I am to use this word with all it's foreignness.

I am all for unusual and unique diction in songs, but at some point -a lesson I am still struggling with- it does more harm than good. I don't think anyone wants a rock album with a glossary attached. But it is a technically better word than Love for this song. How else could I express the feeling of giving myself up to somebody? So I was left with using an odd word, or an incomplete word. I chose to leave out the both words all together and let the story imply the meaning... I think that was best.  

*

sorrow and peace, never release
in joy or in pain, always the same
I hope and pray that in time
lightning will fall, color us all
don't you ever?

Don't You Ever is a Love song, but it is not the main/only subject. The subject is a prayer. A hope for understanding things as they are and not as we see them. Waiting for Satori, waiting for truth to fall down on the couple and the world, even if with violent momentary flash- like lightning. I believe a second of understanding can feed anyone for a lifetime, if it is properly digested.

...I'd like to add, that this song was probably my favorite to record off Shakedown. I think Dan nailed the vibe, and FYI, that is him on rhythm doing a perfect CCR/Stax vibe. Maybe some of that Gospel groove fell into it, helped feed the feeling of the lyrics....

Love can be the strongest springboard for ideas- Which is probably why it is overused. The word, in it's impreciseness, has grown to mean so much. It can launch us anywhere from the depths of desperate longing to the highest moments of bliss and every sort of weird/funny/perverse deviation in-between. Even if the subject is overused, there is still a lot of rich territory for any artist to cultivate idea after idea. 

Love is a subject so prevalent I forget it's there even when the words are in front of me. It is not until after I write a song and look back at it, that I notice I have written another song about love. Hopefully it will not be another one to overlook.

your quiet morning eyes
your eyes of sorrow
your indecisive searching eyes
I looked in and you showed me: wanting, loving
and gave up myself
throwing clothes, security
and naked, gave a wide natural-gut grin
beauty like a lover can see.
I want eye’s heavy with night and screaming joy,
eyes trenched in sorrow, I want them too.
too many eyes for I, and never enough
      only cause I looked

-rene

* photo from: http://dangthatscool.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/lightning_storm_over_boston_-_noaa.jpg

Don't Turn Out The Light, A Vague Prophet

I'm in a story I can't end
I'm only trying to begin,
don't turn out the light
 
The pulsing bass, the double-stopped ringing of lead guitar-its all about that open-E- the angular spastic rhythm, the whirling organ, all build Don't Turn Out The Lights to a state of innate eeriness. Something that reminded me of a horror movie. The music pulses in the anxiety. This song was another written in the studio. I wrote the chorus with Jaime literally minutes before we made the final take, and it was the sound, the atmosphere, that fed the lyrics, usually I work with lyrics first but it's fun to change things up.

*unofficial video

When I work that fast, there is a certain level of worry because the song doesn't have a chance to marinate, to grow into itself, the way Shake Ya had for instance, but the anxiety, the pressure can also be fuel. I try to remind myself that there never is a right or wrong action, only actions taken and actions lost.

It took me a long time to figure out I am not the world's protagonist, and a little longer to learn to be OK with that. It is more fun to be a supporting cast anyway, a character of uncertainty than the flat-stock hero. It's possible that I can have moments where I feel like I'm the lead, but that can all change in the turn of the page. More often I feel like I am one of the faceless mob, a person perhaps lost in the first moments of a narrative, or a seemingly unnecessary hanger-on. But even they are able to drastically change the course of the story at the last second, if I move at the right moment.

Every character's resolution is often determined by the simplest of choices. That is what I was thinking of when I wrote the words to the chorus. Imagine all the times in a horror film when we yell at the screen not to do something that seems so insignificant, Don't Go In There! Turn Around! Look Out! In that simple choice, comes the finality or extension of their existence. I'm sure you've either been the person yelling or heard someone do this. I find myself yelling from inside, Don't do it! every time I'm about to be reckless, but the voice isn't always right and my audience-mind doesn't always have the best answer. 

*

Guessing is the great fun of the game. Maybe walking into the dark alley is certain death, or maybe it is the safest place to be. Only the next scene will tell, but people love to pretend to know. So now looking back at the song, and where my life was when I wrote it. I think I was telling myself something. Sending a message from the audience, giving myself an answer. Sorry to be vague, but only vague prophecies are worth a damn. And the message?

what am I telling you...

What I was telling you... the questions, knowing the details, descriptions, scrutinizing all the adjectives, can make us feel secure but they don't actually help the situation, and only help to heighten the stress. We progress in verbs. Doing/not doing. Choices. I am always a fan of the compassionate choice, ones that puts life ahead of everything else, but Don't Turn Out The Light isn't about which particular choice to make, only about the need to make a choice. Not wanting to feel stuck in the details of a story, in the dead space. Repeating passages of my life over and over, and never finding a way to move along the arc, never committing to a choice: Don't Turn Out The Light.

So what decision to make? I guess I'm a hippie, in that I like to feel my way through life. It is only when I look away, when I leave life unattended, that it seems to really get going. When I'm vigilant, trying to force things to happen, I only get myself further stuck. Like a quicksand pit, life fights back, trapping me, reminding me no matter how strong I think I am, control is not for those who try to win it by strength and reason alone.

 

at the end

a brass nob

dulled by decades of turning

waiting to be touched

wanting to be still

-rene


*image from: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkfizfM5hd1qh2z2xo1_400.jpg

Pilot In The Sky, Out of the Unknowing

I won't give you up
somehow I've taken more than you'll allow
when I think about it, I can't live without it
destiny don't matter much
just an end no man can touch
pilot in the sky
reflecting light

Lennon once described God as "a concept by which we measure our pain." I have a different view of it. If you were to make God a concept, some keep it a fact and that's ok too, I think the concept would be a complete measure of all things and experiences, pain, happiness, boredom... Sometimes I rely on faith, when things seem bad, and in that sense I understand Lennon's statement, but God doesn't have to be relegated to only our hardships. It can be if we want included in the best part of our lives, the mundane parts too. So I would say God is a concept through which we measure life. If you believe in God, and if you don't too, God could be the totality of all things, in which there is nothing that is not under its umbrella, so there would be truly no division. All God, No God same thing, a name, a reflection.

I think here I should mention, that Pilot In The Sky, was a group write. We came up with the chorus in the studio. Everyone shouting out ideas. It really is a group Hacienda + Dan song. So I can not give you a definitive story of it's writing process, each member will have a different prospective of it's origins and meanings, and this is more about what Pilot means to me today. Also I will mention that group writing is a lot of fun, though sometimes trying. I think there are a lot of moments where you can hear different personalities really pop out. Abe did an amazing piano performance through out the song, and Jaime's drums are so tasteful. Myself, for the most part, tried to keep my bass simple and out of the way. Dante's vocal performance is very unique and full of character, and if I remember correctly Dan is providing a very psychedelic ambiance on the wah-wah guitar. Overall it is the song we spent the most time on. Trying to get the feel right, and it is oozing with vibe.

God and religion are touchy subjects for me. They are, to be honest, ones I don't completely feel comfortable writing about. As part of my make-no-stance attitude of rock music, I feel its best to leave those topics to other artists. I don't think there is any shortage of religious based music in the world and Pilot in The Sky isn't by any means a religious song, but just a song that could be interpreted that way.

Recently I have had a lot of change in my life, and it has led me to a state of constant contemplation, so that is the way I'm reading this song. I imagine everyone has periods of intense ups and downs, people seem to be very dramatic creatures, so I won't say that my life is unique in this, pardon me while I keep vague, but the intensity of my feelings do not seem to be part of the average daily experience. By far the most intense change being the loss of my mother who passed away a few years ago. This change forced me to look at the world differently, look at myself differently. I began questioning a lot of the beliefs I had. I feel a lot better having gone through my personal interrogation, and those questions crept up into the writing of this album. So though I didn't start out or intend to talk about some things, they ended up coming out of me. I think Shakedown is by far the most spiritual album we done, and I am happy with that. 

I've always been a little bit skeptical of religion, partly from experience and partly from my love of science. I would consider myself a skeptic about most things, and I consider a line about Destiny with that sort of distance: don't matter much, just an end no man can touch. If something like destiny/planning existed, than there is no escaping it, so why worry? If it doesn't, we still know- well as far as we know, things only happen one way and it's unchangeable. No one can go back and change the past, to add to John Lennon's list of "don't believes" I add: Time travel. The future is made concrete by the present, out of all the choices there is one course of action taken. So plan/no-plan happen with the same result. To believe or not only changes how I perceive the events. Am I in charge? Am I capable of acting? Or am I destined?

check out the starz commercial with Pilot...

These are all really exciting questions and ones I will continue to think about till the day I am no longer able to at all. The chorus speaks to me because it is the way I view the world. A lot of questions, no answers but punched-up with a healthy dose of determinism. No matter what way I look at it, I think it all comes down to our actions. How we live and how it affects others. God/No-God, Fate/No-Fate comes to a personal belief, but it's the actions of those beliefs that create the consequences of our lives. I'd love to know how you guys feel...

Pilot is one of many vague-morphing songs. A song I know is telling me something, even if I can't quite put my finger on it. The lyrics are as searching as I am. I will come back to it in a few years, months, days and have a different outlook, and I think that's beautiful. Maybe that is the greatest thing about music and religion. In the mystery, out of the unknowing, everything is possible. Anyone can project on to it, and pull from of it innumerable meanings. I try to understand something, and find out the only thing to really understand is myself.

in a worn out two-room shack on empty floors,
I think of you

in vast supermarket lines of  tedious measure,
I think of you

in deepest suburban holes of sterile nothing, where I think the saintly would not go

you were already there

waiting in runoff alleys, desperation corners and pavements clawed with jagged nails,
I think of you

in smiles covered in cellophane-sheen like high-rise towers and super complexes,
I think of you

where i found there is no such thing as an empty inhalation,
to know I'm never not taking

you were already there



-rene


PS. I've always been more of a My Sweet Lord guy:



A Natural Life or Speak Like A Horn

I threw a melody to the new morning sky
It lifted through the street faltered and died
This place is not for you, this city's rotting inside
I picked up pieces carried her home
held her tight, reset the bone
told of places, where wild melodies roam



There are some who are born to live in cities. People who thrive on the numbers, who glide on asphalt. Whose hearts beat with the flow and hum of traffic and speak like horns, the only way to be heard. Going hours without seeing the sun, maybe days. It is possible. I'm not speaking against them, or modernism, or technology...though they could hear the words with a choke in their mouth and a bit of guilt throbbing in their chest, and I wouldn't try to deny them the feeling. But I am a man of the fields and wild. I live for solitude. It's where I get recharged. It's where I get inspiration. Jaime pointed out, that Natural Life is a song where a world is created. The song sounds like it's name, it sounds like the lyrics, making it a very complete picture of the open country of home. If you've seen our instagram you could check out what I mean.

*

In the Natural Life
Where it's sunny and bright

I find inspiration in my home, the chaparral. A borderline desert of short oaks and cedar. My dad calls them trash trees cause they're not good for anything really. Only the mesquite is really good for cooking with, and a lot of those have been taken already by previous inhabitants. The cedar does give off a nice pollen perfect for heavy seasons of allergies. We also get cactus by the acre and anything that can tolerate 100+ degree summers and about the shortest winters imaginable. Fine with me, that's about all the cold I can take. I guess what I'm saying is there is as much good as there is bad even in the natural world, but what I find to be inspirational, and what I can't get out of the city is volume and tempo.

The chaparral is quiet enough and slow enough to hear the music that already exists around me. It is everywhere. Old songs. Wild songs. Strange songs with the discordant sourness of death. Dark songs painted in cold isolation. Sunset choruses, and verse falling like rain and drying in the limestone. This is not some idyllic harvest land, but just the way it has always been and will always be. People didn't invent music, we invented rules and patterns. The same way we can find images in clouds, music is inherent in the universe. Songs played for millenia, as ignorant of us and we are of them. The city doesn't give me that. The city is rules and patterns. It is a scream to me, and requires a different ear to pluck out its songs.


Listen to a live version:

Natural Life is not about the songwriter, but a protector and a keeper of the music. In an era where ownership is value, it's hard to say I don't really make music, but truthfully I find it. It might be time to admit there are some things that can not be owned. Somethings we have no basis to claim as our own. Amazingly it is technology that is allowing us to see the continuum in one frozen flash. All of history contained in one source where we can see that art/ideas didn't just pop-up out of nowhere, but emerge from an evolution of thought that is occurring all around us. Luckily, I don't have to go far to find it. This is something inherent in wildlife. The chaparral doesn't just exist on it's own. It wasn't invented or planned, but was inherited. It is a genealogy on to itself, tracing back to the beginning of beginnings. Music is the same.

There was music before and after me, and would have been fine if I never decided to participate in the first place. It is another completely independent genealogy. But also like the wild, it is fully accepting. Music may have an indifference, but it will not turn anyone away. I am completely free to try my hand, to move inside it's line, to participate. So just because I do not own or claim it, doesn't mean I am not apart of it, or vital to it. Just like any single plant, animal or organism, any song, group, writer, can exist in the landscape and even change it in drastic ways. I can walk outside, and be reminded that. The world barely notices me, but also waits for me, continually living and singing. We are simply free to join in whenever we want.

Eaters of the Dark

waves lap and fall
bodies turning
pile and fall
what does it mean to be young forever
Who wants to be an eater of the dark?

-rene


*Photo from: http://musicofnature.com/chaparral_concerto/

The Modern Savage, All Songs are Windows

I've got no thought for building
it's always much to dull
each window i look thru wanna tear down to clear blue
I want to get back
How she passed and made me
with her perfume charms
I finally woke up past neckties and hair cuts
I want to get back


This song is about two faces: violence and its mirror, creativity. That is to say, we have the ability to create, and by Law (Cosmic and Newtonian) we have the ability to destroy. Every structure made, including art and song, can eventually be a form for imprisonment. That is why I try to reinvent myself, to escape. To put on war paint, and hide in the fringes. Sometimes I ambush myself, drag me to a dark corner of thinking, and make myself see the fire.

my heart is racing to what we are

It's a scary idea in the human world. Violence is an unwanted appendage of our animal-ness, no longer needed by an evolved humanity. Some look at it with the modern curiosity of a wisdom tooth or appendix, but it still turns up in every newborn. I have no answers or excuses about it. I make no statement on its value in excess, only to say that it is. Lately, when I watch the news it devastates me to see one ugly half of a beautiful balance repeated over and over. And it wrenches at me. I have to remind myself it is only half, and perhaps most importantly I have to turn off the news.

There are varying degrees and definitions of violence, and I wanted to explore writing about its musical sense as an expression of my own work. Savage is a song about writing. Some music builds on the past, and some is born reactionary and battling against it. I feel as a writer, I have to fight against my past work, my laziness. I have a tendency to repeat, so I make an active effort to revolt -make it new. But even trying to change is a pattern I don't want to fall into, which is why I'm always second guessing myself. Any construct is a window of how the maker views the world, and all songs are windows.

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Fortunately there is a way to overcome the urge of destruction. The other face, creativity. Making something. Committing. Building. For this song, the turning point is Love, a woman, but it can be anything. Nature, Emotion, Etc... The Muses. Something strong enough to wake up our thoughts. Something to make us see the world in a clear way, even momentarily, and suddenly every action is in alignment. This is the attractive part of our instinct, but they are the same. They are natural. Somehow in that alignment we realize all the things we used to hold on to (neckties/haircuts) were the very things strangling our creativity- I would really like to know if anyone else has felt this- and for that moment of inspiration I can commit to a prospective of my world, and from that joy, make something.

The moment, for this song, came to me from the title word, and as soon as I had it, I knew where I wanted the song to go lyrically. Savage is a wonderfully loaded word with so many images conjured, but to me it reflects the uncivilized. What Joseph Campbell described as those things outside the circle of our campfire. The fear created by seeing ourselves as an other. The scariest thing about witnessing horrors and violence on the news...for me, is recognizing that horrible acts are created by people, people like me. It would be more tolerable to see devils, shadows and monsters, but I see people, foolish people, and I can try to distance myself by giving them labels, giving them reasons and excuses, statistics and categories, but we are all only people acting out, the way people do. I realized the connection of the two, and that the very impulse that gave us Bach and Liszt, is twin to the impulse that gave us every horror- I don't need/want to list them.

let's be Savage, gonna sing our song
let's be Savage till the feeling's gone

I don't like to make many stands on current issues in my music. I like pop songs, not lectures. Savage comes from the feeling of participating as a citizen in our times, not as a direction. Which might be contradictory sounding, cause I do sing Let's be Savage, but I meant the phrase to be a guide into the self, not out to others. I have enough trouble working on myself to worry about trying to change others.

If I could make a statement, I would like people to turn against their own ideas before pointing fingers and getting on the various soap-boxes. It would be beautiful to see people turn inward and question where our impulses, both creative/destructive, come from. To find our Self, to peel back the layers of civilization and experience, and rediscover what it means to be a person, is what I meant about being Savage; however, this is the view from my current window.


there is a sound so desperate to exist
it plagues inside every crack and twist
soaks in the brain and turns around
to find itself, solemnly sitting down.
to understand something so unsure
accept you are as raw and impure
live or break at anyones command
it is in you as in the sound

well, is there ever really change? I can't tell
a different face to occupy
a different place to dwell



-rene

Listen to Savage

p.s.: congratulations on The Black Keys and Dan for their recent Grammys


*War dance in the interior of a Konza lodge photo from: http://blogs.spencerart.ku.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/kansas-indians-dog-dance-18221.jpg