The Bad: Part III

Prologue

There are too many stories to tell.  As my business mentors used to call it, I keep going off to Abilene when I try and write about the band.  One story leads to another, which leads to another.  Before you know it, you’re in Abilene.  Shit!  We were supposed to go to Albuquerque.

The Bad, Part 3

Two albums.  Both were professional and both were uniquely ours.  Steve and I were both coming into our comfort zones with producing music versus being produced.  Since we lived so far away from each other, we were limited to weekends we could schedule in order to keep working on making new music.  In the meantime, we both had recording equipment at hand and were amped up at the opportunity to produce music.  It didn’t take too long before Steve and I began working with other musicians.

There were a few characters in Wondertucky that I spent time with.  There was a feller everyone called Topper.  He was an incredibly talented drummer, but we were never really able to get anything together.  There was another feller named Randy.  He had a beautiful song idea and I had a recording studio in my basement.  We made, “Awoke From A Dream” nearly seamlessly.  There was what we fondly refer to as, “The Mysterious Three”.  One of The Three is the younger brother of my dear friend Jason.  These young and talented musicians ended up in my basement, and I had the honor of recording two of their songs.  As their songs didn’t have lyrics, The Bad filled in the blanks.

While I was recording with artists local to where I lived, Steve was working with artists local to him.  When we were recording our first album, we utilized a track that Steve and Dylan had made years before The Bad.  The song, “That’s Not What Life’s About” features Steve as the lead singer.  I laid in background harmony.  I remember thinking to myself at the time that I was about to be fired as lead singer - it is still one of my favorite tracks.  Of course, those fears were unfounded, but years later they began to surface again.

I had been doing spot recordings, but Steve had become the member of another band – and I thought that might be it for my music career. Steve:

“Patrick was a natural born drummer. Not many people with this particular condition can go long without playing their instrument. He recently picked up a digital drum set and was jamming with a couple of friends. He wanted me to come over with my guitar (Frankenstein) and see how my style fit in with the guys. There was a lead singer, Scotty B and a Rhythm guitarist, Ryan S (whose parents owned the basement we were jamming in). They also had a bass player, who was just learning how to play. We played through a couple songs, but there wasn’t really any magic. The guy playing bass needed to take off and I asked them if I could jam some bass while they played. 

Something just clicked when I played bass in this band. We were like 4 totally different people who created songs with such originality that I was hooked. Now that I lived on my own, and had a band who all lived locally, we could practice every day if we wanted to. We started hanging out all the time and pretty soon we had a huge entourage. We started filming ourselves at every practice just to try and find ways to get better. Scotty B was meant to be a star and I thought, finally I have a band that I can put together a live show with. 

In the meantime, Tim and I were still committed to keep recording together as The Bad. However, due to the fact that he had a recording studio in his basement, he started branching off as well. He started producing a local guitarist/town drunk named Randy and another young band. He also started performing way more due to the popularity of Karaoke. Getting up in front of people and singing is what Tim was born to do, but now he could sing, play multiple instruments & produce. 

Things with my band, unofficially titled “Unexpected Jam” had reached a zenith. We had planned a huge party, where we were going to make our first big show. Pat and I rented the equipment we needed for the sound stage and we got to setting everything up. It’s not easy for first timers to wire together everything needed for a great live show, but we did our best and we started doing some sound checks. Not five minutes go by and the cops are already there. Ryan’s dad was a retired police officer, so we didn’t get a ticket or anything, but we started to think, how are we going to pull off this live show, if we can’t even get through one song without the pigs showing up. 

The day of the party was a complete wash. I mean it rained buckets on our dreams. This singular event completely took the wind out of our sails. The band didn’t completely fall apart, but we stopped practicing at Ryan’s and soon hanging out together became more about anything other than the music we were going to make. Fortunately I still had “The Bad.”

Fortunately for me, I still had “The Bad” too.  Steve and I both ended up in the same place via different roads.  I was doing production work, but wasn’t participating much as a musician.  Steve was meshing with a live band, but the drama involved with bands caused the usual break-up of so many great bands.

When the dust settled, we all ended up back with each other.

Come Together

Steve:

“Much of the productions on this album where done by each of the members of The Bad separately. This was a type of fracturing of the band, but it also created some amazing results. Tim with 3 recordings done in his studio. Me with 3 recordings that I did at the apartment with Pat. And Dylan with Manhiki Island. We could hardly call ourselves much of a band, but then as things were going from bad to worse with my band/living situation, Dylan pulled a diamond out of his ass.

 Pat and I had set up a small walk-in closet as a micro studio. This was problematic in many ways, but surprisingly we ended up recording a lot more stuff that ever before. Scotty B’s problems had basically forced him to leave. We were determined to wait it out to see if maybe when he came back, the magic would still be there. There was definitely magic, but it came from a riff that Ryan had been jamming at practices on and off for the last couple months. We had always intended to develop some lyrics for Scotty on the song, but when we ended up recording it, Scotty was already gone.

 One night when we were all hanging out at our apartment, Dylan showed up. Instead of letting him socialize, I tossed him right in the closet. I wanted to see if he could contribute a track to our song, which now had a rhythm track, lead guitar, bass guitar and a tribal drum that Patrick played. Dylan set the keyboard on “Pan Flute” and rocked the joint. His playing took that song and brought it to a level that our previous music couldn’t even touch. It was magic and since it gave our band new hope, we called it, “New Life”.

 I did “New Life”, the music for “The Last Among Us”, “Never Pure”, “When the Soldiers Come”, and the music for “Tribal Dance” in that closet and despite its small size, I really have some fond memories of recording there. This basically ends the story of “Unexpected Jam” after Scotty decided that he was going to be staying in Florida. Ryan had been scheming to leave also, but never told us about it. He packed up and boom, he was gone too. I have lost my band and Pat and I just couldn’t hold it together.

 I moved back in with my parents and Pat moved to Virginia. This is when Tim and I started finishing off some more tracks together. We put the finishing touches on “The Last Among Us” and “Tribal Dance”. We also recorded another track arranged by Rob called, “The Great Boat in the Sky” (based on the directions to get to Tim’s house from mine). We started to think about putting all these various tracks that we had all done separately on one new album for The Bad. If people thought the last album was a little overly diverse, than this one was going to kick them in 4th grader.”

I love the way Steve puts things.  By distance and circumstances The Bad splintered apart, yet somehow managed to come back together and reform.  Well, not “reform”…

“Tribal Dance” is unique.  It features many different influences and styles.  Yet, when I listen to it, I hear a common thread within the range of songs.  I hear The Bad in the songs I made.  I hear The Bad in the songs Steve made.  I hear The Bad in the songs Dylan made.  Still, the songs I love most are the ones we all made together.