Pilot To Gunner

We pulled our ’99 Ford E-Series up in front of our practice space in Brooklyn. It was a Tuesday afternoon. It had been 4 months. We’d been across the US 3 times, hitting 46 of the lower 48. One of us rode with severe food poisoning across the Great Plains and Pacific Northwest for 3 days, throwing up out of the back door, refusing to stop for treatment and miss shows. Because we couldn’t afford to. We’d been back to Australia, where one of us, in a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to pad the coffers at the dog track, lost every penny he had. And we’d been in Europe for 6 weeks, 17 countries, from UK to Russia. In Moscow, a man wearing a watch that cost more than the building the show was held in offered to sell one of us a woman. To take home. For life.

So yeah, we were tired. So we cancelled the remaining 2 months and got back to writing songs. But the money was gone.

Re-enter one J Robbins, who made Get Saved with us. He needed a studio built. So over the course of months, we put in the floors, soundproofed it, renovated the front office, and we made Scott replace the toilets. Every couple of weeks we’d go down to the Magpie Cage in Baltimore (deep in “Wire” country) and make an improvement in the studio and record whatever we’d recently put together.

“L.A.” the lead-off track, was originally recorded onto Patrick’s phone, where it sat, forgotten for months, then was re-discovered by chance and given a proper on-wax-ification.

“High Command” needed a congo track. Kurt walked out and returned with a set of congos. He’d never played them before, but he nailed it on the first take. Then he walked out of the live room and continued straight out the door. We never knew where he went.

Scott Padden sang and played guitar like a truck driver.

Patrick Hegarty played guitar and sang like a sensitive pirate.

Martin McLoughlin played bass and sang like a male model.

Kurt Herrmann provided drums and percussion like a cybernetic organism.

Janet Morgan sang like a dandy fop.

J Robbins produced like a boulevardier.

Carl Saff mastered like a power-lifter.

Jack Jeffries shot it all like a shark-puncher.

This is our 3rd full-length. This is Guilty Guilty. We are very excited to be a part of Arctic Rodeo’s awesome roster of bands. This is how you run a label. And if, in 2012, you still have to be told to play a rock record loud, you are beyond help.