SHALLOW
This is the second song we wrote together. 
I stole a chord or two from an Incubus song  (you'll hear that a lot) and said "hey, guys, here's an intro, now what?"  We sat around in Mike's room jamming the riff, trying to figure out something of an order for it (you'll also hear that a lot) and even from the very first song we wrote, and this being the whopping second song in,  we didn't want to do the usual verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-double chorus...thing.  (Yeah, we came close, but whatever)We jammed, Addison made up some lyrics, which at the time we thought were awesome, but upon further review, we realized they kinda un-did themselves.  Haha.  Such is life.  And I remember Kevin Wood would walk around just saying "unguarded".  Haha.  I think by the time we got around to recording the song, Incubus' A Crow Left of the Murder had come out.  At one point we realized that the bridge for our song sounded quite a lot like "Megalomaniac", and thus began the infamy of me writing Incubus songs before they came out. (yes, steal one part of their song, write another that hasn't been written yet) As we continue mulling through all the music that Mike and I have had a part in, that number is going to steadily rise.  

Favorite part #1:  Travis' bass part right before the second chorus
Favorite part #2:  What Zednick came up with for the part of the song after the second bridge.  It was the verse, but a different way of playing it.  	I carry that with me still.  When I come up with something that I like, I play it with different "voicings" as they call 'em, and then I love it.  And with that, the Outro 'verse'.  We play the same thing like 4 different ways and throw in the 'pre-chrous' riff at the end.  

What if #1:  If Mike had the chance to go nuts on the bridges like he did when we all played it together.  We were sixteen and had no idea to record, but we did our best.  (At least I had no idea, Addison did an awesome job)

Shallow

DON'T HIT SNOOZE
16 year-old me-  "This sounds like some spaced out kind of Asian jam!"
26 year-old me-  "My uncles told me it was a straight rip-off of "Stranglehold", but I didn't know what they were talking about."

I want to say Travis and I were sitting around the jam room, well, jamming, and the rest of the guys weren't there yet, but who knows.  We came up with the riff thingamajig and got really excited, and as soon as everybody else got there, we showed them, and I think they liked it.  Guys, if you didn't, it's too late now.  Somewhere in there, we came up with a chorus, but the main point we wanted in the song was to make it "like a Sick Sad Little World-type jam, man!"  Meaning, we wanted like two minutes worth of jamming in the middle of it, where everyone in the band has a solo sort of moment.  Again, Mike always did freaking awesome on these parts, it's just too bad we weren't quite talented enough to get it "on tape". And yes, Sick Sad Little World is an Incubus song.  Sue us.  
The beginning really does sound like a sunrise, to me at least.  Until we all come in and adjust our time.  Haha!  Man, we sucked!/Suck!
I always thought the lyrics were awesome, but never understood why Addison said "Sparring glitters.."  Haha.  I kid. It took me forever to ask him, but he explained he was saying "Clearing the dust from my eyes..."  He really came up with some awesome social-minded, WAKE-UP-WORLD type lyrics on this cd, which I was all about. One of the most fun memories was during like parts of a guitar solo, or the end of the bridge thingy, we'd all kneel down to an effect pedal and twist and turn all the knobs on them to make crazy noises!  Yes, there is an Incubus dvd showing them doing the exact same thing, but you gotta get your ideas from somewhere, 'ey?!
And that is still a go-to.  Messing with the knobs on pedals, that is.  

Favorite part #1:  Zednick's guitar solo.  'Nuff said.
Favorite part #2:  At the end of the song, you hear Travis fiddlin' around on the bass.  When he was recording his part, 	I ran in there near the end, let him fiddle, and then I took his cable and did a Jack Meza.  It makes it break-up and sound like it's cutting out, and then cutting back in.  Just another memory I am fond of.

What If #1:  What if I had realized it was a rip-off of the Nuge?

Don't Hit Snooze

PI
The first ever NAMELESS song!!
I came up with the verse and chorus in my room one night.  I picked up the guitar and just played the riff out of the blue.  
That's still how it happens today with a lot of things.  Just pick up the guitar, and the first thing that comes out, is an idea for a song.
It's doesn't matter what it is.  
We were in Mike's room, "Alright, guys, here it be..."  And Travis played his part, and the rest came pretty easily.  Zednick came up with his part, again, doing kind-of what the main riff was, but not quite.  That's what made it cool.  I remember we'd have a verse and a chorus for a song, and we knew that we'd come up with something cool for a bridge, or breakdown, as we always called them, just by saying, "Ok, when we get through the chorus, just do whatever..."
Again, to make it not quite so typical, we went to the bridge after the second verse.  We were smart like that...
Travis came up with the bass part and we just jammed on it, until we all found something to do.  I ripped a part of an A Perfect Circle
song for my part.  Continue sueing me, folks!  And then, BUILD UP!  We did a lot of things by just saying "build it up".
A funny thing about the lyrics we pointed out to Addison was that every line ended with something "ING"  "Decieving"  "Leaving" 
"Breaking" "Learning" "Accepting".  Hahaha.  During the bridge you can hear Addison saying "You know you complete the circle"
over and over.  

Funny story about the whole song:  Addison typed up the lyrics one night and brought them to practice one day
and noticed that at the end of one of the lines, the printer had spit out a "pi" symbol.  (I don't know how to type one out now, 
but you know the one)  And he didn't type it, either, the printer had just put it on there.  From that moment on, it was called PI.
Sure enough when we got around to recording it, the length of the song was.... 3:14.  Perfect.  Sometimes it just works out that way. 
(Roughly, any how.  There's always time to throw on some extra noise at the end of a song, clapping, guitar noise, what not)

Favorite part #1:  It's called "Pi" and it's 3 minutes and 14 seconds long.
Favorite part #2:  It was the first song we ever wrote.
Favorite part #3:  Jamming!
Favorite part #4:  Ben Kenney may or may not have heard this while in Chelsie Loftin's Aunt's office.

What If #1:   What if Ben Kenney had heard it?
What If #2:  What if Chelsie Loftin's Aunt hadn't said "Yeah, going "Ahhhhhhh" isn't a chorus."

RAIN AND WINDOWS
Lemme see...it had a few name changes.  It came out of a jam that was a sort-of rip-off of "Killing in the Name of"  by Rage Against the Machine, believe that or not.  We were at Addison's house one day just jamming and hanging.  I remember recording the jam thing on a tape recorder, who knows what landfill that thing is in now.
Any how, after that day of jamming, Addison had worked on it himself, and we knew he was an excellent piano player,  and we didn't have a piano song yet, and this one was awesome, cheesey, and awesome.  I went to his house one night and he showed me the full idea he had, and it was lovely.  My only suggestion was to make the bridge he had the pre-chorus instead. That's why I get paid the big bucks.  Wait... hahaha.  Oh, and to make the bridge just a chorus with a piano solo of the notes. BAM!  Hahaha, and oh yes, he didn't know how to end it, so I used a little D, C, G magic while ripping off the bridge of Incubus' song "Stellar" and bam!  Oh, and we wrote the song and some time later, that Kelly Clarkson song came out about "I take my wings and I blah, blah, blah..."  WE WROTE IT FIRST!!
Lemme see...I think one name for it was "Content" and then it was something else, and then, I did what I always do and lifted
an Incubus idea.  They had a song called "Monuments and Melodies" and I liked the "and" inbetween those words.  I thought about it, and figured "Rain and Windows" sounded alright.  I mean, it had some alliteration, which is now a pet peve of mine, but it was cool at the time.  And he said "rain" and he said "windows", so there.
This song was kinda done in pieces.  Zednick took it home and came up with his part.  That's probably my favorite part of the whole song and cd in general.

Favorite part #1:  Recording the acoustic guitar on Amanda Mahan (Now Russell)'s guitar, Anabelle Lee
Favorite part #2:  When Addison and I performed the song at the Spring Show (thank you, Cherokee Charmers) Zednick told me "Yeah, man, you looked like a bad ass with your hat on, and you never looked up, that was bad ass"
Favorite part #3:  Covering the scope of our 'influences', we now had our Coldplay/Radiohead song.  Haha. 
		Yes, this is what we did.
Favorite part #4:  Cheesier type songs can be fun.  Cheesier type songs can be fun when you play punk versions of them.

Rain And Windows

AGE OF THE MACHINES
Here was our TOOL song.  C'mon, it's in Drop-D. 
Travis' opening bass "SPACE KNOCK" was always my favorite part of a show.  The song was originally called "0-3-5" because if you tab out the chorus, those are the frets.  Haha.  The guys always spoiled me by us working out my ideas.  
And letting me pretend that my guitar solos sounded good.  :) Thanks, guys.  I had a pretty good order in mind, and we went with it.
Do a double chorus and then somehow we got the idea to have a bass solo right after that.  I'm telling you.  The first time Travis played that bass solo, we all about flipped our lids.  We were blown away.  He credited it to some "scale" or something, I didn't know what the crap he was talking about...  Haha.  Oh yes, yyyyyyyeaaaahhh, Mike!  You got that drum roll!!  
...I still cringe when I listen to all this, so thanks for reading.  Oh yes, this song was usually the one we'd end a show with, one time we started with it, we were all about bored of 'rocking out' at the end, so we flipped it around.  We got another idea from Incubus in playing songs (and coincidentlly lifting a riff from some other band, we found it convenient to play said song INSIDE our song).  We tried a few times to stick in a part of a song called "Lateralus" by Tool during the bridge.  Mike's little cymbal hits were the same, so  we went for it.  Man, that was fun to do.  We at least got our friends to turn their heads for a few seconds.

Favorite part #1:  A long, rockin' out song.  Two guitar solos.
Favorite part #2:  All those things I done listed.
Favorite part #3:  NOT-SO-SECRET-SECRET-TRACK...    I'll spare you, it's 8:00 in.

NOT SO SECRET, SECRET TRACK.
Come on, who doesn't listen to cd's all the way through??????
Now days Marvel has everyone sitting all the way through the credits of every movie that gets put out. When I was younger, cds did the same thing for me.  Yes, Incubus, Tool, thank you.
P.S. (Pre-script) -  We did not do any drugs during the writing or recording of this cd.
We were sitting around Addison's house and got a really stupid, great idea. I picked up the acoustic, we gathered around the computer, and Addison hit record.  We had a blast.  The loudest laughs are that of Max Pell.  I love you, Max. Notice mine and Zednick's unrehearsed yet perfectly timed singing.  "I'm wearing...UNDERWEAR!!"  "What?"

TheBandNameless