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[shakedontshatter]

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I’m posting this to tell you that we can get quite obsessive about the details in the QH camp. This is something I’ve always admired from these gentlemen I have the pleasure of collaborating with year after year. This means that we try a lot of different things and sometimes those things just don’t make the cut.

Commuter, as you may have heard in the original version, has an outro that never made the release... There were many variations of that outro, all of which never made the final version. This one is likely one of my favorite outros we ever recorded. I believe the charm and ultimately its downfall was the genre bending turn it takes the song. Its the siamese twin brother that got surgically removed and laid to rest. Anyway, you must hear it.

[shakedontshatter]

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The timestamp on this file reads July 26th, 2012. I know that’s not accurate because I recall the end of 2011, a New Years Eve in Asheville, N.C. spent trying to lock up the kick in this rough drum take that was never meant to be used. 

It was largely this repetitive, jangly acoustic guitar pattern that seemed rather addicting at the time and inspired the original version of this song. I recall long commutes to and from work at the time. Those quiet times in the car meant for reflection before you got to where you were going. Where was I going? I forget. Doesn’t matter, I was stuck in the car and forced to make the most of it, so commuter was born. And Commuter it was so appropriately called.

It would never see the light of day until DHound and MHound dug it up from the archives a few years later and turned it into what you’re hearing today. My how far we’ve come.

[shakedontshatter]

Shake Don't Shatter

When we were originally concepting the theme of Shake Don't Shatter, we talked a lot about the distance that inspired these songs. So when set out to design the cover art, we looked to embody that idea, tossing around a lot celestial imagery and lots of canyon filled landscapes. After a ton of exploration, we thought we’d start from scratch and try the idea of transmission, trading files, and building songs. 

So I borrowed a camera from a good friend and drove south on the 101, 30min towards LA after work one day. Perched myself on some access road up in the hills until the sun started to set. There are these power lines as far as you can see. It was pretty spiritual just sitting there watching the light change, quiet breeze pushing the tall grass around… hoping nobody would pull over and shoot me. I tried catching the lines bouncing in and around the hills… only a few came out right.   

In the end, it felt like the power line thing wasn’t translating…  It felt too static, too literal. So I abandoned the idea after a cop pulled over and told me I wasn’t supposed to be there. I drove back up north and just as the sun was about to set, some pylon forms caught my eye. Veering off the highway, I drove up to some structure that was being built right across the street from my apartment complex.   

I shot with what day light I had left and ended up mirroring the final image so that it mimicked the form of a sound wave... sound waves under construction if you will. The final version framed in a thick white border holding the title and band name has a lovely vibration about it. And although far from the original intention, seemed to fit just right.

[shakedontshatter]

I have to admire the simplicity of this track and its nod to our more playful sonic past. M mentioned that this was inspired by some beach town that he wished he could afford to live in. Envy goes great with warm and sunny chord progressions!

Regardless, I can totally relate. I am surrounded by a level of materialism that I never thought would be common place. A Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a 10 million dollar house on a hill. It’s so foreign to me. And it’s everywhere. It permeates the air and distorts our vision of simple living. All these fancy things...  as empty as what I imagine a mansion to be. 

JK, I want a mansion so bad.

[shakedontshatter]

Lyric and melody writing has always been a cerebral exercise done in some form of isolation from the guys even when we were in the same building. Once the song structures started to take shape, I was usually looking for a quiet corner to hash things out. So in a way, a lot of this process felt somewhat familiar. 

At the same time, it’s been a challenge being so far away and trying to communicate exactly what it is that you’re wanting your friends to hear. I’d say the biggest difference is missing the art of spontaneity. A spontaneous energy that’s impossible to re-create... An energy from this rare group of gentlemen that inspire parts that you would have never discovered on your own. In a car. By yourself. 

So we got good at capturing fledgling ideas and quickly sharing them to collectively build momentum. The guys would send me brilliant pieces. I’d chew on them for a few days, digging through old notebook scribbles, and capturing as many melodic variations as I could. I’d pick through these melodies, throwing out the ones that didn’t stick in my head for more than a week... boiling it down to the ones I felt were the strongest. 

I'd explore chord changes, play with string arrangements, add keys and guitar parts. Then I’d send it back for the guys to add their magic to the mix. We’d build the track, take it apart and put it back together until it felt right. 

This is our process. And its a story rooted in a tradition that goes back more than 10+ years. A group of friends making music together and capturing sounds so we could share it with the world every week, every month, every year since early 2000. 

… So this distance is a departure from a long-time pattern for us. A departure from what we’ve known for so long. A departure from old habits, so that we might find a new perspective in all of this. In this departure, we continue the journey of collaboration to once again arrive at a complete thought. 

[shakedontshatter]

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After we got settled in out here, the guys sent me an updated version of this scratch track M was calling "The Shark”. Typically, I take whatever title is thrown at me and make it a game to try and turn that title into something meaningful. I guess you could say I was having a hard time sinking my teeth into “The Shark”, so in rare form, I abandoned the original title in search of something else.

Fresh off the move, I felt compelled to capture my homesickness in what boils down to a letter to my friends back home. I’d say the title comes from a long time fascination with what it must have been like to survive back in the prehistoric era… or even the wild west. What it must have been like to trek across open land foraging for food, raising offspring, living without basic plumbing. I wonder if the idea of home is a primal feeling baked in our DNA and if modern conveniences have warped this notion.   

What you’re hearing in this clip is the start of some melodic structure and basic harmony ideas over the precise repetitive forms captured in the original demo. I ended up changing the key of the chord change to better fit my melody which took the overall mood of the composition to a darker place. The lyrics have changed since this was originally recorded, but I didn’t stray too far from the basic idea. Here's some of my original notes and scribbles below: