If You Ever Need a Demo
Are you feeling okay? Are all these your guitars?
Brothers & Sisters: These were mostly recorded with my phone wherever I happened to be sitting when I was writing, except "All in All" which I wrote in Garage Band at Brett Player's cabin in the mountains while my young bride slept. And there's an old one I polished off that didn't make the final track listing. It’s a cliche for a reason but there is often something captured in the first couple of times writing or recording a song that has the spirit of what you’re trying to capture in its purest form, but it can be so elusive and impossible to replicate. You have to keep moving though if you want to get better. You have to ditch the notion of anything being precious and just do the work. Many of you know this, some of you probably don’t and even if you do then you may be like I was: well aware of what needed to be done but too afraid to do it.
I spent years with some of my best stuff unheard by anyone but me because although there was something in there that I really loved there was too much bad or incomplete in the rest of the recording to share it and I was too scared to try it again for fear of it being so brittle and fleeting that it would crumble in my hands. This would confirm my imposter syndrome suspicions and make me realize that I should sell all my gear and become an accountant. So I just moved on until my next bout of inspiration hit and recorded enough to not forget that initial spark, but I didn’t know if I’d ever get back to any of it.
I don’t think anything here is from those early, cringe-worthy voice memos. These cringe-worthy voice memos are me finally committing to seeing what I could do with my ever-increasing pile of ideas. Regardless of my staggering self-doubt or the lack of anyone else on the planet wanting to hear it or even caring it existed I dove in and didn’t look back.
Bear hug!
Yours,
Bert