Brightest Young Things

For Middle Distance Runner, this past year has been marked with milestone events and great achievements.  From the release of their music video for "The Unbeliever", to signing with Engine Room Records, this band continues to plow through music industry roadblocks and attain the status and recognition that most bands dream to achieve.   Regardless of whether you or not you like the music, you have to appreciate a group of guys, working their butts off to achieve some sort of recognition in a music world so bogged down by terrible bands.

The guys have just wrapped up a cross country tour and are gearing up for an east coast tour over the next few weeks, kicking off with their show at Iota this Saturday.  On Tuesday night, Erik, Steven and Allan came over for dinner (cooked by Allan of course) and over goat cheese stuffed figs and juicy venison, they shared their tour adventures.  Highlights included hookers, cougars, witches, corn husk dolls and Boyz II Men.   So have a listen to some of the new tunes, read the in depth explanations for each song, annnnnnd come on out to Iota on Saturday, support a local band, buy a cd, get a free record and celebrate the weekend!

^{photo by susan pleiman}

The album is streaming here on Engine Room Records:

http://www.engineroomrecordings.com/music/?albums_id=58

1. The Sun & Earth
This was the first song that came to mind when we decided to make another full-length album.  It had previously been on our self-titled 2007 EP, but we felt like it deserved a more fitting home.  The entire album follows a sort of theme, with this song being the title track because it captures a lot of the rest of the album.

Erik came up with the concept for this song, about the Sun being farther from the Earth when it's hotter, and I thought that was a brilliant metaphor so I started thinking about how to take the concept further.  Considering the size difference between the Sun and the Earth, and the relationship of dependence, it occurred to me that every relationship could be compared to that.  Every relationship, whether between man and woman (this song), man and man ("Sundays Are Hell"), man and God ("The Unbeliever"), etc., is inherently unequal and that inevitably leads to conflict.  So while a lot of the album paints these relationships as a lost cause, there are glimmers of hope throughout, and it definitely ends on a positive note.
The sound of this song was also sort of a jumping-off point for the rest of the album.  We wanted the album to have a vague texture of "earthiness" to it.  Personally, I was listening to a lot of Feist, old Stones, and 60s soul.
Bop bah dah!

2. The Unbeliever
This is an upbeat, odd-time, 60s-garage-sounding joint about free will.  It portrays a relationship in which the guy has no free will but still gets blamed for everything.  Lyrically, this song is a perfect example of what I was going for on the whole album.  It portrays a relationship that can be taken as a God-Man relationship or a Man-Woman one.  Either way, the dynamics are the same because all relationships are inherently unequal in one way or another.  All you can do is say "Hallelujah!  I give up!"
When I came up with the demo for this song, I knew what I wanted to say in the verses, but the odd time signature even threw me off until Erik came up with the bassline.  That looping bassline was a reference for everything else, and it sounds familiar and sort of 60s R&B, but adds another element to the song.  Thanks, Erik!

This is the first single from the album, and if you buy The Sun & Earth at the release show on Saturday, you'll get a free vinyl of this single!  God, we're generous!

3. The Fury
This is a nostalgic, wistful little pop tune.  Imagine yourself driving around at twilight on the last day of high school . . . in 1976.  Erik and I recorded the original demo for this in 2003, and included it on a CD of demos under the name Der Fantastisch Boys ("The Fantastic Boys" in German), all from Erik's bedroom.  We handed it out amongst friends, probably 50 copies at the most.  The CD also had demos of "Naturally" and "Man Of The People", two songs from our debut album Plane In Flames.  The people who got copies of this when I was in college were some of the first to come to our shows in DC in 2005, which was strange because they knew all of the lyrics and sang along at our first show ever, at DC9.  And then they told two friends . . .
The original demo was just acoustic guitar and very few ambient touches, so we were all really happy when we found a direction for the full-band version.  I think Allan suggested adding that driving, almost 80s beat to it.  Jay's strings are what give it the most important touch, in my opinion - that nostalgic feeling.  It took the song and made the scale of it so much more open.

4. The Wrong Hole
A sort of funked out gospel song that is the B-side to "The Unbeliever" single (also on the vinyl!).  I kinda thought I would come up against resistance from the rest of the guys by trying to put this on the album because of the falsetto vocals.  I'd never really done that for a whole song before, and it was kind of a genre leap of faith for us.  The original demo was sort of a bluesy guitar number, but as soon as we replaced my guitar with that delayed piano, we all let out a collective "hell yes".
I love how this song sort of feels like a loop.  We tried to stay away from our usual inclination of ending really big, dynamically, and I think it adds a much better feel to the overall song.  We wanted it to kind of drone, and put people in sort of a soul-music trance, and then end with an uncharacteristically sparse breakdown.  I referenced Serge Gainsbourg a lot to get that ending, kind of a creepily empty, drugged out French thing.  I love how this song ends.  We ended up really having to stretch our brains for such a simply structured song.
Soul power, y'all.

5. Round Here
This song started out with the middle part, which Erik partially wrote about being miserable at a party.  I book-ended it with the intro and outro lyrics, which changed the entire meaning.  This one covers a lot of ground.  Like 3 songs in 1.

While recording it, the song became another example of how we had to make ourselves comfortable with an unfamiliar structure.  There are no lyrics to the "chorus", just "la la"s.  That seemed unnatural, so we wrestled with the idea of adding lyrics there.  Ultimately, it stayed "la la" and gave the listener a sonic rest between verses.  Honestly, we even thought of leaving it off of the album, but the content was so strong that it ended up staying.  It turned out to be a favorite track amongst our close friends who have heard the album.
This is another song where the relationship has more than one possible interpretation.  The "you are my only father" line at the end was something I came up when we were messing around in rehearsal with this song, trying to come up with an interesting arrangement.  I remember having to stop singing because it made me choke up a little.  It was exactly what I wanted to say in every way.  That kind of satisfaction is really rare, for me, and it's another reason why this is my favorite project we've ever done.  I feel like we all invested way more of ourselves into it.  If you listen to the vocal take at the end, you can hear my voice crack a bit, which I wanted to leave in because it reminded me of that first rehearsal.

6.  Palindrome
We tried our best to pare this down and make it very intimate.  I'm a big fan of wordplay, hence the backwards instruments around the middle of the song, breaking it up into a musical palindrome.  We put it sixth on the album, too, so that it'd be perfectly in the middle.
This was probably the hardest song on the whole album to record.  We tried about 20 different takes of the intro guitar, with and without different backing instruments, to get the perfect feel.  I reference a lot of other people's music in the studio to convey to the guys what it is I'm looking for out of a song.  With this song, it was "Flint..." by Sufjan Stevens.  That reserved, matter-of-fact delivery and the delicacy of his dynamic shifts are so much more powerful to me than the quiet-loud dynamics that are so comfortable.  In that way, this song is another example of how we really tried to challenge ourselves with arrangements on this album.

Also, I play all of the trumpets on the album, which I haven't done since 5th grade.

7. Sundays Are Hell
A big, poppy sing-along about religion and gay rights.  Fight the power.  Plus, GUITARMONIES!!

This is another song that started with Erik's lyrics.  He tends to write from a very personal place, and then I generally change a few things to make the song more broad.  He wrote the first verse, and from there I took it in an entirely different direction.  By the second verse, it becomes about encouraging someone to stand up for themselves in front of what seems like a world that's out to put them down.  Like a lot of our songs, when I talk about anything that preachy, I want to make sure the music is catchy enough that people aren't turned off, so I told Jay and Allan to get together and write a guitarmony solo after the first verse.  Needless to say, they were more than happy to comply.
They spent almost an entire day together, writing their parts in the basement.  We'd definitely never done something like that before, so we were a little worried that guitarmonies would be out of place, or sound ridiculous in the middle of this album.  To their credit, though, it ended up being totally tasteful and appropriate for the song, but still fun.

8. Joyful Noise
We don't often write songs that follow a narrative, but this is about as close as it gets.  Yet another song deifying a woman.  This time, not sarcastically.  Maybe that's because I wanted it to sound like Feist?

An ex-girlfriend of mine went to Brazil for a semester of college and told me tales about Festival down there, and honestly it terrified me.  That's where the verse about losing someone in a stampede comes from at the end.  Once they took their relationship into the real world, it became out of control and they were torn apart by circumstance.  She and I broke up when she was away at college.  *Ahem*
When we play this live, Jay plays the toms along with Erik to make it sound really tribal or Caribbean.  We also don't often mix subject and sound that closely, which makes this song another that's really unique in our repertoire.

9. Let Nothin' In
A rompin' stompin' country tune about keepin' yer guard up.  Yee haw!

Another song about a girlfriend.  Yeesh.  This time, she didn't want to date me at first and I had to trick her into it.  She tried to keep her guard up and not let me in, but she had mono and walking pneumonia at the same time, so I eventually won.  In your face!
This was the last song we recorded for the album, and we finished it in about 3 days.  It has that feeling of just letting go and doing what's natural, which I really like.  Also, Tony plays the mandolin on this, which is by far the cutest thing I've ever seen in the studio.
That outro, where I say "Shut up! Are we recording, or what?", came from all of us standing in a room doing a bunch of takes of the group vocal.  Allan, Tony, and Jay were relentlessly cracking jokes, and I was the only one with headphones on, so when the music started up I couldn't tell if we were just listening back or doing another take.  You see, because I'm very professional and they're a bunch of slackers.

10. Brother John
Rollicking southern rock song about the war machine, maaaaaaaaan.  We recorded this first, and had been playing it for years live.  That's why it was in that Harley Davidson commercial way before we finished the album.  Coolest thing we've ever done.
The lyrics to this one are probably my proudest moment as a songwriter.  My little brother was going to join the Marines in 2007, which worried me a lot.  We used to sit down at our family dining table for hours and hours of discussion about what he was really getting into and what it was all for.  My dad was understandably proud that his son was going to be a Marine, but I couldn't help thinking that his pride could ultimately lead to something terrible happening.
Now, my brother lives in Oregon and works for a non-profit that advocates for corporate environmental sustainability.  He told me that those discussions, and this song, helped him make his decision.  MDR SONG WIN.

11. He Take Ride
This song covers as much sonic ground as we possibly could, and it gets downright ridiculous.  I'm talkin' a choir, an a capella breakdown, and the Second Coming of the GUITARMONY!

Lyrically, it's about a loss and reclamation of innocence, which is kinda what it felt like to make this album.  It also sums up the album the way I wanted to from the start.  There are lurking dangers everywhere, people trying to steal your innocence and make you jaded and all of that, but you've gotta press on and do your thing and tell those people to scram, because there's not enough time for anything else.
Even though relationships are hard, all of them, they're still the only way to live a full life.  Gotta stay positive.  "I was reborn" making this album.
We're so proud of it.  We're so happy to be back.

It's Middle Distance Runner, bitch.

Free download for those who read and or scrolled through this whole thing:

http://www.spinner.com/2009/10/01/middle-distance-runner-the-fury-free-mp3-of-the-day/

Want more:
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CD Release Show is this Saturday @ IOTA