Sat 4/20/24 7:51a EST
Well then. Currently at cruising altitude on my way home from Pennsylvania, still glowing from this experience. We made a record. A really good record. We’re immensely proud of it and can’t wait for people to hear it. Took a lot of work and moving parts (like engines and airplanes), very happy with the results. We haven’t even started mixing and it already sounds great. Our engineer/co-producer Jay was amazing to work with and a delightful guy. Great hang. His little Pagoda City Records studio in the heart of Reading, PA is truly a diamond in the rough.
Reading isn’t really rough but you get it.
That’s the thing here; we are doing this out of love. For the music, each other, our shared mental health, and fun. If we didn’t enjoy each other this wouldn’t work and that’s evident by comments made by Jay on the first day of recording and echoed at the end of the last. First day he said that it’s clear that we have a good time together and that’s refreshing because not all bands he works with have that. That’s always been strange to see bands that may work well together musically but are nightmares to each other personally. We happen to do both pretty well. We’re (relatively) normal people with normal jobs and lives and families and things who don’t have a huge amount of time to devote to this but last year we decided to see if we could make it happen and 8 or so months later we have a fully tracked album and figuring out when to release it this year. There are more things in the works as well that we’ll talk about when we’re solid but we managed to do a thing and did it well. The single we put out for “Rex Manning Day” was a fraction of a snippet of how this is all sounding. We dug in on our performances, shared some good and some shelved ideas and supported each other throughout. There were a few firsts as well that will be exciting to hear. Everyone sang on this at one point or another. Times past I was a bit precious about how things went and it felt so much better to make this an actual band project. This is the first time that Sean and Matt C got to play together as well. We pushed ourselves and each other to be better and it was great and it was FUN. That joy is evident and present in these recordings.
All this to say that even when you’re getting older and have a lot of responsibilities it’s not only possible but important to make time for what actually makes you happy. This makes us happy. Playing songs together and hearing our combined vision come to life makes us happy. Being able to hand our kids an actual copy of something we did is special. Maybe that will inspire them to do something different with their lives too.
For the first time in my musical career it feels like everything has fallen into place. I’m very grateful and appreciative for these four dudes (sorry Jay, you’re one of us now) and so very happy to share our combined efforts with the world. I love them and the people that have and continue to support us. It doesn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated. Thank you.
-Padraig
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