You've been playing the guitar since... what?
You were fucking...
1987, when I was 14.
While you're dead?
I learned from it. I started off in drums and then after watching everybody leave practice with a minimal amount of gear and I got a set of drums, I was like, screw this.
How early did you meet the guys who were in our second? Like Stefan and those guys?
Oh, Stefan and I met in 1995. Right after we played it here on Heights, I was with a overfolk. And Stefan and Nacho Mama were on the bill.
Stefan and Zeke were playing together and I guess they needed another guitar player. The guy they had on the gig was only a temporary guy.
He wasn't staying with them and I guess I got to talking to Stefan. I don't really remember talking to him at the show, but he lived right around the corner on Artesian in Riverdale Park and I was on Old Young Street.
So it was easy for us to get together and that's where it started.
The first paying gig was probably with those guys.
So, where does it come from?
The music? I guess I'm a dad.
Do you dream it?
Oh, you mean where do I get the ideas?
Reading things, watching movies, anything that's in the news, usually something that makes it visual.
I didn't even listen to your song.
The first one, Brigg on the Water, I got the idea from an old picture.
A Frenchman who was an early photographer took a picture. It was in 1856, I think.
I've seen it with two different titles. They call it either Sea and Sky or Brigg on the Water and it's just an early experiment, I think, by this guy Gustaf Le Gray.
But I just saw the picture and I just imagined the music to go with that picture and that was what I always had in my mind.
Funny too, when we were doing the Young Country CD, the first one in 2001, I figured we'd be working on tunes and recording and that.
That was the only song I came up with while we were doing that.
I figured I'd come up with another ten because we were working and playing so much guitar all the time, I figured I'd get some new ideas.
That was the only one, but I always really liked it. A friend of mine, Kevin Cobas, actually heard it and really liked it and he put some lyrics to it as well, which are quite good.
I wouldn't attempt to sing them.
