My songs are very personal creatures. I tap into areas of memory that, sometimes, I'd rather not have to visit. The key thing I try to keep in mind is honesty. If you listen to one of my songs, I promise, I've been there, done that, and written this song about it. You may like some of them more than others, but they are all very real...and painfully open to your criticism. I owe my friend Todd a great deal of thanks for essentially putting this page up without my consent. I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable having my songs playing for you as you look at this page, but I hope you like them.
So you get some idea where each song is coming from...I'll give you a brief glimpse into the circumstances that spawned them.
"Closer" is an attempt to explain how easy it could be to change so many things; one simple step that could make all the difference in the world. It marks the end of something that was once beautiful and the closure of learning that sometimes, no matter what they tell you, it isn't your fault after all. (About this song...it's the first of what I hope to be several songs in a collaborative musical effort with my good friend Todd. He wrote the lyrics and I gave them a melody. We worked out the guitar parts together, but the lead guitar is all Todd...and I even managed to get him to sing with me a bit.)
"1,000 Days Since Sweet September"....here's a brief snippet of history. Circumstances prevented me from being with a lovely woman who I absolutely adored. I told her I would wait for her. Basically, I put my life on hold for about one thousand days...because I'm dumb like that (actually, it was a little longer, but I like the nice, round number). This song is about the waiting...the day I found out what I'd been waiting for...and not giving up despite having every reason to do so.
"Little Things" is a broken promise. At some point in my waiting for the previously mentioned girl...I got depressed (who wouldn't?); so I wrote this song to remind myself of all the things that I was waiting for...and how she was worth it all. It's a happy song about how great things were before it all hit the fan (see 1,000 Days). I was going to play it for her when things finally worked out as a promise to her...that I felt this way, and that I always would. By the time she finally heard it, it was too late...she had moved on, and she hadn't even bothered to tell me so.
"Somniloquy" is a song about uncertainty. It's a song about the gray area between friendship and something more. I told her how I felt while she was sleeping. I think she heard me...and that's where this song came from.
"Open Fire"...oh...this song came from a lot of hurt. It's about getting involved with someone that I really shouldn't have...and all the nasty and bitter things that happened once I fell for her. I could write a movie about the circumstances that spawned this song.
"The Tears in Your Hair" is a one-sided conversation. It's the sort of thing you get when someone says there's nothing left to talk about. It's a song about the walls people put up...and banging your head against them.
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I learned to play guitar by playing church music. I cut my musician's teeth on songs like Amazing Grace and Farther Along. My father was the pastor of a small church in Doyline, La at the time. The church's piano player stopped attending regularly, and so the church was left without any music. My father told me to pick an instrument to learn to play so I could play at church. My choices were piano, mandolin, dulcimer, violin, banjo, or guitar. My reasoning at the time was, if I told someone I played guitar, at least I would sound moderately cool...lol. Come on, give me a break, I was 14.
It didn't take long for me to start to wonder what other types of music were out there in the big wide world (Just as a note, I honestly didn't know. I wasn't allowed to listen to the radio growing up, and if the radio happened to be on in the car, it was always on the Oldies station). My first memory of hearing something that wasn't Christian or Oldies music was a PBS broadcast of a Fleetwood Mac concert....and I was instantly in love. It was the first time in my life I had heard a guitar solo, and I thought to myself, "That's what I want to do!". To this day, Fleetwood Mac still holds a special place in my heart...and I still can't solo the way I wish I could...lol.
Shortly thereafter, I started my first band. We were terrible, but it was a lot of fun. We played a little talent show in Minden, La and won best youth band and second overall in the entire competition....we were also the only youth band...and I think the judges were tone deaf...did I mention that we were terrible? Eventually, our little band busted up on a very bad note (pun may or may not have been intended). I started listening to Metallica, and my parents started frowning at me when I came home with a new cd. They eventually got over it. It was during this time that I wrote my first song. It wasn't a bad song. It just wasn't a good song. It was a strange hybrid of church music and Metallica runs...and it just didn't work.
I soon disovered that I didn't play well with others. I had these big, somewhat epic ideas of what a song should be...and so jam sessions quickly turned into arguments. That being said...I spent several years (off and on) playing my guitar alone on the floor in my room. I found that regular chords didn't fill up all the sound I wanted. Instead of learning entire albums of other artist's music, I spent hours on any given day figuring out ways to play a sort of rhythm and lead hybrid that gave a melody to my playing that I lacked before. Slowly, I became aware that I had a pinkie and that I should probably use it....and thus was my playing style born. Conversely, I became the bane of everyone I've ever tried to jam with.....oh, if only I had a dime for every time another guitar player said to me, "What the hell are you doing, dude?"....I'd have enough money to buy my way into the music industry....ha ha.
So, there you go. That's how I arrived at my sound...as it is right now, anyway. I still learn something new every time I pick up my guitar.
Thank you for reading this, for listening to my songs, and for all your kind words and support.
Michael
