You people have impeccable taste in rock 'n' roll music.
A while back, I was telling china_shop about the liner notes for the Headstones' Greatest Fits, which include the guys' impressions/memories of each song. Since cs hasn't been able to get hold of the album, I offered to transcribe them for her, and she thought other people might be interested, too. So here they are. A disclaimer here: we love Hugh and the guys. We want them to have money. So if you have the means, buy the albums, 'kay? In the meantime, enjoy.
Contributors (as listed on the album credits):
Dale Harrison - drums, percussion, tape box
Trent Carr - guitars, back-up vocals, keyboards
Tim White - bass, back-up vocals, keyboards
Hugh Dillon - vocals, harmonica
Crew:
Steve Carr - Road Manager
Derald Blair - Sound Scientist
Al "Al" Paquette - He Paints With Light
Dave Sabean - Stage Tech, Ass Tech
Kevin McKellar - The Merch Guy (sometimes)
Smile and Wave
TIM: I remember meeting the "Billy and Sarah" that are in the song and actually getting to be friends with them. They were the first fans we really hung out with. I also remember doing the video for this. I still have the wigs.
HUGH: I loved the video for this song and was disappointed it didn't get much play. I'm still impressed with Trent's vocals on this song.
TRENT: Hugh and I have a game (one of our many childish games) where we try and freak out the other guy by just seemingly appearing out of nowhere. While he was doing takes for Smile and Wave I was standing just outside the vocal booth peering my head around the corner-he didn't see me for a long time. Finally he sees me and I scare the shit out of him. You can hear him at the start of the song laughing and saying "Come on in!"
DALE: Great time putting this one together in Jim Huff's basement. Then recording it in Morin Heights. "And if I hear another word about beer! I'm going to scream!!!!!"
Crew notes:
KEVIN: Dynamics. As a fellow smoker, I often wonder how Trent yells the "Wwaaaaaaaaaaavvvvveeeeeee" part. He has an uncanny knack for writing cool, heavy hooks, yet doesn't spoil us with them.
Cubically Contained
DALE: Shooting the video, flying to England, living in the same clothes for two weeks, holding up the Jumbo to go home because we left our passports at the hotel. Derald, who we left that morning with lunchmeat taped to his head, had to untie himself and send the passports in a cab to the airport. We were rushed through customs and driven two kilometers to the gate then had to sit in a jet for eight hours… cubically contained.
HUGH: I was hanging out in Dale's apartment trying to stay clean and sober-one of my many attempts at trying to clean up-and I really noticed how many pointless excuses I had made to so many people, ad nauseum.
TIM: I remember playing this song, I think it was Winnipeg, in front of 4000 people, I go to play the first bass note of the song, which is a drop D, and my bass had somehow become unplugged. The full power of the Disappearing Bass Trick. The band LOVES it when I do that.
TRENT: This was a fun song for me to record-lots of tracks, three acoustic guitars, two super effected guitars playing string like harmonies, one guitar going through a Leslie speaker in the chorus. Then there's the little toy keyboard that had a great organ sound that I had, so we used that. When Tim and Dale added their beautifully sparse parts, it was perfect for Hugh to sing over. I really like the sound of this song.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: This song is responsible for making me a fan. He may kill me for saying this, but I believe this song is kind of an autobiography, lyrically, of Hugh's life up to that point in his life. I should ask him if he feels the same. Maybe not. Human metronome on the acoustic.
Unsound
TIM: I wrote the bassline for this when I was eighteen. We were at rehearsal and I started playing it during a break, just noodling around, off in my own world. "What's that? That's good!" said Hugh.
DALE: The first song I can remember jamming in my basement right after I joined the band. I loved the '69 GTO convertible in the video. It's quite a shame we had to crash it.
HUGH: Wicked bassline. "Bottom lip quivers, rage is so apparent…" came from a fight I had with our old drummer-the closest we came to fisticuffs.
TRENT: Tim had been playing this bass line for a couple of days (for years, apparently, without playing it for anybody else). One late night at our rehearsal spot we had one of our more jet-fuelled jams, we played this riff for hours it seems. Hugh was writing the chorus "I'm gonna become, I'm gonna become, I'm gonna become, gonna become Unsound" all over the walls. Our old drummer had just quit the night before; it was a bonding moment.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: Flea wishes he wrote that riff, let alone when he was eighteen.
AL: This is pretty much the only song where I get to put a spotlight solo on Tim. I use every light at my disposal and swing them over to Tim. I'm so proud of him.
STEVE: Near the end of Unsound you hear Hugh yell "Dave!" This is a reference going back to the first tour when Hugh would stay up late with me while I was driving. We'd listen to Tom Petty's Greatest Hits and knew every "um," "ah," and "hey" on the record. Hugh turned the "hey!"s into "Dave!"-which was my nickname at the time. He always said he'd record it and he did.
Three Angels
TIM: This was my favorite Headstones song from before I was in the band. I love the recording we did (plus the organist blew me away, he was that good).
DALE: It is a personal favourite which I choose to listen to or to participate in, when we play live.
HUGH: This reminds me of when Trent and I would go to the Wheat Sheaf and load up the jukebox trying to outdo each other in naming the next song. Years later I saw this song in that jukebox.
TRENT: I love this song live. It's a cool moment when the music mellows out and the audience is still moshing away, everyone singing at the top of their lungs.
Crew notes:
STEVE: In 1992, before the band was signed we would play gigs at a little club in Toronto called Ultrasound. One day some people came up from LA to see us and they wanted to know if we could turn 3 Angels into something like Extreme's "More Than Words"… never saw them again.
KEVIN: I remember doing a gig at my favourite venue, The Commodore Ballroom, in Vancouver. I was standing beside Derald at the mixing console when the band started this song. The crowd was singing the lyrics along with Hugh; only Hugh could not be heard. I looked at Derald, as if to say turn up Hugh's vocal. He laughed while pointing to the fader that controlled Hugh's vocal mic-it was maxed. It was amazing how loud and into the song the audience was.
AL: I love this song live because it is the only one where I can leave one simple light scene up and go to the can.
Settle
TIM: What I remember about this song is mostly the way it came together. At one point, all we had was the opening riff. Now what? Paul Northfield helped a ton with this song; particularly the chorus bass line-I never would have come up with anything like that on my own.
TRENT: I had this riff for years. I remember first playing it in sound check at the Rev in Edmonton. While recording NFYN this song took shape on Paul Northfield's Mac. While trying to figure out a bridge for the song the computer fucks up and pitch shifts a few chords right in the section we were looking to change. We ended up using that mistake-I always loved that.
DALE: Loops ahoy! BAM! Look at the motherfucker, we have a single, Houston!
Crew notes:
STEVE: Every sound check there's always at least one really cool riff that takes over. For some reason this one from Edmonton years ago stood out to me and for years I kept reminding the band of "that Edmonton riff."
KEVIN: When I hear this song I get an angry look on my face. When Tim and Trent break into the fast hook part, my fist unintentionally shoots into the air and I yell "WWWOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Tweeter and the Monkey Man
TRENT: Hugh was sitting around one day singing these cool lyrics. I said, "Wow, what is that?" "It's a Traveling Wilburys song, I wanna cover it." Since only Hugh had heard the song before, the rest of us started playing it how we thought it should sound. After we were fairly satisfied with our version we went for drinks at the Wheat Sheaf and Tweeter happened to be in the jukebox, so we listened to it. The chords Hugh showed me turned out to be wrong and there was an extra little guitar melody that sounded cool. So we went back and made a few adjustments, but we kept the incorrect chords.
HUGH: I'm proud of how original this cover is. First time I noticed we had a "sound."
TIM: I learned this song from Trent. I didn't hear the original of it until months after it was recorded. We heard it on a jukebox in NYC. I couldn't believe it was the same song.
DALE: I love this tune. It reminds me of Festival tours.
Crew notes:
STEVE: I figure this song has been played live the most-over 1000 times… and probably played perfectly correct-50 times.
KEVIN: God bless Hugh for bringing this song to the band's attention. I think some fans may be surprised by some of Hugh's influences-he has "impeccable taste in music." Even as an employee, who is not on stage, I sometimes get goose bumps when I hear the crowd's reaction to the drum intro of this song during a live performance-I can only imagine how they feel.
When Something Stands For Nothing
TIM: We had just finished doing bed tracks and had moved on to guitars. Trent was talking to our producer about a certain part when all of a sudden the guy gets up (really pissed off) and yells, "I can't work with this guy!" and storms out of the control room, slamming the door behind him really hard. We were all in shock. Ten seconds later he comes back in with a big grin on his face. "You like that one?" he says, laughing. The Slamming Of The Door Joke became extremely popular after that. I don't think the Metalworks guys appreciated us wrecking all their doors, but it is a great outlet for blowing off steam in the studio. It's especially good when there's a new person around because they get really freaked out by maniacs slamming the shit out of doors and then howling with laughter.
DALE: The first tour I did with the Headstones was with IME and this single was in the beer cases. Hugh and I went into a beer store in BC and made the girl working there open every case until we found one of ours! It was excellent… twenty cases later!
TRENT: I remember Hugh playing the "and this one's for…" on my roof when I lived at the Annex in Toronto. He had all kinds of different endings to that phrase. Like a lot of our songs it started out being a joke song. One line that I remember was "and this one's for the Green Hornet and Superman."
HUGH: First song I noticed I was becoming obsessed with songwriting. I kept waking up and writing more lyrics. I started enjoying the craft of writing with this song.
And
DALE: When this song was finished I felt it was just the little bit of icing the album needed to be complete. That summer was insane; it helped me pick up the pieces…
TIM: What I remember most about this song is shooting the video for it right in the middle of a national tour. Due to the scheduling, we had to fly from Vancouver to Nanaimo in a tiny, shaky little plane for a total of about five minutes. We then for some reason rented a giant white stretch limo to go to this tiny little gig we were doing.
HUGH: The lyrics to this song really helped me persevere during long tours, especially when I was exhausted mentally and physically.
TRENT: We worked on this arrangement in the studio just minutes before recording. I forgot to work out a solo. So when it came to the solo part I had to wing it. I thought it sucked when we finished the song, thinking, "I'll have to go back and fix that." Everyone else loved it. It took me a while, but now it's one of my favorite solos. That's when I learned that you're not always the best judge of your own performance.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: During a tour to support NFYN the band's security guard (Sean Croft) would always put Jennifer Lopez, and artists such as these on the bus's CD player. Tim and Derald threatened to throw the CDs away. About two weeks into the tour, every time I walked past Sean he was singing this song.
AL: This is one of my favourite songs to light. I love the heavy dynamic changes from verse to chorus-ahh cover your eyes, here comes the chorus again!
It's All Over
HUGH: The first song I wrote. I was in England and I would busk on the street, that's how it started out. Then I moved to Toronto and met Trent. It's the first song Trent and I wrote together. He had that cool riff.
DALE: The first song I figured out was "It's All Over." The phone call… Tim called me and asked if I could make an audition two days from then, I said yes for sure, man! I asked how I would get a copy of the music. He said, "Any record store would have them…" I had to borrow money to buy the CD, as I was broke. I loved the CD. He called back two days later and said they were opening for Cheap Trick for two weeks and he would call me when they got back. In the interim I learned every tune on the disc. My audition was without Hugh… well, he was passed out in another room. Tim, Trent and I smoked a pack of cigarettes, drank a pot of coffee, jammed, and the rest is history.
TIM: This is one of the first songs we recorded for Picture of Health. It also incorporates D A D D tuning which at the time I had never heard of before. It made me think, "Wow, these guys are cool."
TRENT: This song reminds me of when we used to rehearse in our old bass player's apt. While jamming we could see right onto Adelaide Street. One night we notice about 6 cop cars racing down at top speeds the wrong way. Of course we leap into action and run down the stairs to find an undercover cop that had just been shot! He was leaning up against a fire hydrant, blood everywhere. Cops were everywhere, all in a very excited state. We kept hearing over their radios "Officer down! Officer down!" Rehearsal over, back to the bar for some drinks.
Hearts, Love, and Honour
TIM: I love how beautiful and also how bombastic the riff is in this tune. True Epic Rock.
TRENT: Hugh had the main chords for the verse, but I was determined not to play the obvious chords. Tim and I sat in rehearsal and didn't leave until we came up with something other than the standard DCG chord voicings.
DALE: The Video: we didn't see the end of it for a week… never meet the kids in it, and the producer at the time gave mea real problem about the beer after our day of shooting. The best outro we have as far as jamming goes.
HUGH: We had so much time to waste on the shoot for this video. I sat and wrote "Pathetic Pair" sitting in the flooded bedroom… then Trent and I came up with another song: "Dale's got a hand for a penis"-we really did.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: Lyrics like these are hard to come by these days. It has a monk chant like I've never heard even monks do!
Blonde and Blue
TIM: This bassline was done in one take. It's not at all difficult technically, so I had to give it some kind of dynamic throughout. Some friends of ours were going out east for an extended motorcycle vacation. I just imagined them all ridin' down the highway and what an amazing feeling of freedom that is.
DALE: The first track that I recorded after hearing my father died. One take-next! I think of him and our relationship when I hear or play this tune.
TRENT: I love singing harmonies. My favourite in this song is the last "my heart is yours" over the chord change to the G before the "ooh ooh"-I love the way that it hangs. Another interesting thing about this song, well maybe it's not interesting, is that there's an A (a couple of guitars plucking away) droning through the entire song. Once you hear it, you'll always hear it-ah hah.
Crew notes:
AL: I remember hearing a demo of this song on the bus after a show out West. I remember being under the influence of a music enhancing substance, turning to Trent and telling him, "That one moved me."
Cemetery
TRENT: We're playing a show in Winnipeg when this guy stage dives and smacks his head on the barricade between the stage and the audience, he falls to the ground, has a seizure, then he stops moving. I remember thinking "Oh man, how morbid and tasteless. I'm watching some guy die while we're playing Cemetery. Shouldn't we stop?" But then he got up. I hear he's all right now.
TIM: We were playing this song at some festival and in between the end chorus lines "lookin' for love" and "went down to the cemetery" we sang "Ready for Love!!!" really loud in Cockney accents like from "Clockwork Orange," laughing our heads off at the same time. This is a great example of "road fever," which is like cabin fever but on tour.
DALE: Bruce McDonald and the Video: he forgot I was in the band. ed… oh yeah, I was…
HUGH: We weren't sure about Dale yet. He had been in the band only a couple of months at this point, hmmm… maybe we shouldn't put him in the video, he may be gone next week… Dale is now a Headstone for life-but he'll always be "The New Guy." Check the song writing credits-Pete Bourne went on to play with Circle C.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: I have always hated watching people on the subway "rocking out" to the songs on their Discman. When I listen to this song while on the transit system, I become that guy. I think it's the drums? You should see me when they do it live.
And that's it! :)
Contributors (as listed on the album credits):
Dale Harrison - drums, percussion, tape box
Trent Carr - guitars, back-up vocals, keyboards
Tim White - bass, back-up vocals, keyboards
Hugh Dillon - vocals, harmonica
Crew:
Steve Carr - Road Manager
Derald Blair - Sound Scientist
Al "Al" Paquette - He Paints With Light
Dave Sabean - Stage Tech, Ass Tech
Kevin McKellar - The Merch Guy (sometimes)
Smile and Wave
TIM: I remember meeting the "Billy and Sarah" that are in the song and actually getting to be friends with them. They were the first fans we really hung out with. I also remember doing the video for this. I still have the wigs.
HUGH: I loved the video for this song and was disappointed it didn't get much play. I'm still impressed with Trent's vocals on this song.
TRENT: Hugh and I have a game (one of our many childish games) where we try and freak out the other guy by just seemingly appearing out of nowhere. While he was doing takes for Smile and Wave I was standing just outside the vocal booth peering my head around the corner-he didn't see me for a long time. Finally he sees me and I scare the shit out of him. You can hear him at the start of the song laughing and saying "Come on in!"
DALE: Great time putting this one together in Jim Huff's basement. Then recording it in Morin Heights. "And if I hear another word about beer! I'm going to scream!!!!!"
Crew notes:
KEVIN: Dynamics. As a fellow smoker, I often wonder how Trent yells the "Wwaaaaaaaaaaavvvvveeeeeee" part. He has an uncanny knack for writing cool, heavy hooks, yet doesn't spoil us with them.
Cubically Contained
DALE: Shooting the video, flying to England, living in the same clothes for two weeks, holding up the Jumbo to go home because we left our passports at the hotel. Derald, who we left that morning with lunchmeat taped to his head, had to untie himself and send the passports in a cab to the airport. We were rushed through customs and driven two kilometers to the gate then had to sit in a jet for eight hours… cubically contained.
HUGH: I was hanging out in Dale's apartment trying to stay clean and sober-one of my many attempts at trying to clean up-and I really noticed how many pointless excuses I had made to so many people, ad nauseum.
TIM: I remember playing this song, I think it was Winnipeg, in front of 4000 people, I go to play the first bass note of the song, which is a drop D, and my bass had somehow become unplugged. The full power of the Disappearing Bass Trick. The band LOVES it when I do that.
TRENT: This was a fun song for me to record-lots of tracks, three acoustic guitars, two super effected guitars playing string like harmonies, one guitar going through a Leslie speaker in the chorus. Then there's the little toy keyboard that had a great organ sound that I had, so we used that. When Tim and Dale added their beautifully sparse parts, it was perfect for Hugh to sing over. I really like the sound of this song.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: This song is responsible for making me a fan. He may kill me for saying this, but I believe this song is kind of an autobiography, lyrically, of Hugh's life up to that point in his life. I should ask him if he feels the same. Maybe not. Human metronome on the acoustic.
Unsound
TIM: I wrote the bassline for this when I was eighteen. We were at rehearsal and I started playing it during a break, just noodling around, off in my own world. "What's that? That's good!" said Hugh.
DALE: The first song I can remember jamming in my basement right after I joined the band. I loved the '69 GTO convertible in the video. It's quite a shame we had to crash it.
HUGH: Wicked bassline. "Bottom lip quivers, rage is so apparent…" came from a fight I had with our old drummer-the closest we came to fisticuffs.
TRENT: Tim had been playing this bass line for a couple of days (for years, apparently, without playing it for anybody else). One late night at our rehearsal spot we had one of our more jet-fuelled jams, we played this riff for hours it seems. Hugh was writing the chorus "I'm gonna become, I'm gonna become, I'm gonna become, gonna become Unsound" all over the walls. Our old drummer had just quit the night before; it was a bonding moment.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: Flea wishes he wrote that riff, let alone when he was eighteen.
AL: This is pretty much the only song where I get to put a spotlight solo on Tim. I use every light at my disposal and swing them over to Tim. I'm so proud of him.
STEVE: Near the end of Unsound you hear Hugh yell "Dave!" This is a reference going back to the first tour when Hugh would stay up late with me while I was driving. We'd listen to Tom Petty's Greatest Hits and knew every "um," "ah," and "hey" on the record. Hugh turned the "hey!"s into "Dave!"-which was my nickname at the time. He always said he'd record it and he did.
Three Angels
TIM: This was my favorite Headstones song from before I was in the band. I love the recording we did (plus the organist blew me away, he was that good).
DALE: It is a personal favourite which I choose to listen to or to participate in, when we play live.
HUGH: This reminds me of when Trent and I would go to the Wheat Sheaf and load up the jukebox trying to outdo each other in naming the next song. Years later I saw this song in that jukebox.
TRENT: I love this song live. It's a cool moment when the music mellows out and the audience is still moshing away, everyone singing at the top of their lungs.
Crew notes:
STEVE: In 1992, before the band was signed we would play gigs at a little club in Toronto called Ultrasound. One day some people came up from LA to see us and they wanted to know if we could turn 3 Angels into something like Extreme's "More Than Words"… never saw them again.
KEVIN: I remember doing a gig at my favourite venue, The Commodore Ballroom, in Vancouver. I was standing beside Derald at the mixing console when the band started this song. The crowd was singing the lyrics along with Hugh; only Hugh could not be heard. I looked at Derald, as if to say turn up Hugh's vocal. He laughed while pointing to the fader that controlled Hugh's vocal mic-it was maxed. It was amazing how loud and into the song the audience was.
AL: I love this song live because it is the only one where I can leave one simple light scene up and go to the can.
Settle
TIM: What I remember about this song is mostly the way it came together. At one point, all we had was the opening riff. Now what? Paul Northfield helped a ton with this song; particularly the chorus bass line-I never would have come up with anything like that on my own.
TRENT: I had this riff for years. I remember first playing it in sound check at the Rev in Edmonton. While recording NFYN this song took shape on Paul Northfield's Mac. While trying to figure out a bridge for the song the computer fucks up and pitch shifts a few chords right in the section we were looking to change. We ended up using that mistake-I always loved that.
DALE: Loops ahoy! BAM! Look at the motherfucker, we have a single, Houston!
Crew notes:
STEVE: Every sound check there's always at least one really cool riff that takes over. For some reason this one from Edmonton years ago stood out to me and for years I kept reminding the band of "that Edmonton riff."
KEVIN: When I hear this song I get an angry look on my face. When Tim and Trent break into the fast hook part, my fist unintentionally shoots into the air and I yell "WWWOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Tweeter and the Monkey Man
TRENT: Hugh was sitting around one day singing these cool lyrics. I said, "Wow, what is that?" "It's a Traveling Wilburys song, I wanna cover it." Since only Hugh had heard the song before, the rest of us started playing it how we thought it should sound. After we were fairly satisfied with our version we went for drinks at the Wheat Sheaf and Tweeter happened to be in the jukebox, so we listened to it. The chords Hugh showed me turned out to be wrong and there was an extra little guitar melody that sounded cool. So we went back and made a few adjustments, but we kept the incorrect chords.
HUGH: I'm proud of how original this cover is. First time I noticed we had a "sound."
TIM: I learned this song from Trent. I didn't hear the original of it until months after it was recorded. We heard it on a jukebox in NYC. I couldn't believe it was the same song.
DALE: I love this tune. It reminds me of Festival tours.
Crew notes:
STEVE: I figure this song has been played live the most-over 1000 times… and probably played perfectly correct-50 times.
KEVIN: God bless Hugh for bringing this song to the band's attention. I think some fans may be surprised by some of Hugh's influences-he has "impeccable taste in music." Even as an employee, who is not on stage, I sometimes get goose bumps when I hear the crowd's reaction to the drum intro of this song during a live performance-I can only imagine how they feel.
When Something Stands For Nothing
TIM: We had just finished doing bed tracks and had moved on to guitars. Trent was talking to our producer about a certain part when all of a sudden the guy gets up (really pissed off) and yells, "I can't work with this guy!" and storms out of the control room, slamming the door behind him really hard. We were all in shock. Ten seconds later he comes back in with a big grin on his face. "You like that one?" he says, laughing. The Slamming Of The Door Joke became extremely popular after that. I don't think the Metalworks guys appreciated us wrecking all their doors, but it is a great outlet for blowing off steam in the studio. It's especially good when there's a new person around because they get really freaked out by maniacs slamming the shit out of doors and then howling with laughter.
DALE: The first tour I did with the Headstones was with IME and this single was in the beer cases. Hugh and I went into a beer store in BC and made the girl working there open every case until we found one of ours! It was excellent… twenty cases later!
TRENT: I remember Hugh playing the "and this one's for…" on my roof when I lived at the Annex in Toronto. He had all kinds of different endings to that phrase. Like a lot of our songs it started out being a joke song. One line that I remember was "and this one's for the Green Hornet and Superman."
HUGH: First song I noticed I was becoming obsessed with songwriting. I kept waking up and writing more lyrics. I started enjoying the craft of writing with this song.
And
DALE: When this song was finished I felt it was just the little bit of icing the album needed to be complete. That summer was insane; it helped me pick up the pieces…
TIM: What I remember most about this song is shooting the video for it right in the middle of a national tour. Due to the scheduling, we had to fly from Vancouver to Nanaimo in a tiny, shaky little plane for a total of about five minutes. We then for some reason rented a giant white stretch limo to go to this tiny little gig we were doing.
HUGH: The lyrics to this song really helped me persevere during long tours, especially when I was exhausted mentally and physically.
TRENT: We worked on this arrangement in the studio just minutes before recording. I forgot to work out a solo. So when it came to the solo part I had to wing it. I thought it sucked when we finished the song, thinking, "I'll have to go back and fix that." Everyone else loved it. It took me a while, but now it's one of my favorite solos. That's when I learned that you're not always the best judge of your own performance.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: During a tour to support NFYN the band's security guard (Sean Croft) would always put Jennifer Lopez, and artists such as these on the bus's CD player. Tim and Derald threatened to throw the CDs away. About two weeks into the tour, every time I walked past Sean he was singing this song.
AL: This is one of my favourite songs to light. I love the heavy dynamic changes from verse to chorus-ahh cover your eyes, here comes the chorus again!
It's All Over
HUGH: The first song I wrote. I was in England and I would busk on the street, that's how it started out. Then I moved to Toronto and met Trent. It's the first song Trent and I wrote together. He had that cool riff.
DALE: The first song I figured out was "It's All Over." The phone call… Tim called me and asked if I could make an audition two days from then, I said yes for sure, man! I asked how I would get a copy of the music. He said, "Any record store would have them…" I had to borrow money to buy the CD, as I was broke. I loved the CD. He called back two days later and said they were opening for Cheap Trick for two weeks and he would call me when they got back. In the interim I learned every tune on the disc. My audition was without Hugh… well, he was passed out in another room. Tim, Trent and I smoked a pack of cigarettes, drank a pot of coffee, jammed, and the rest is history.
TIM: This is one of the first songs we recorded for Picture of Health. It also incorporates D A D D tuning which at the time I had never heard of before. It made me think, "Wow, these guys are cool."
TRENT: This song reminds me of when we used to rehearse in our old bass player's apt. While jamming we could see right onto Adelaide Street. One night we notice about 6 cop cars racing down at top speeds the wrong way. Of course we leap into action and run down the stairs to find an undercover cop that had just been shot! He was leaning up against a fire hydrant, blood everywhere. Cops were everywhere, all in a very excited state. We kept hearing over their radios "Officer down! Officer down!" Rehearsal over, back to the bar for some drinks.
Hearts, Love, and Honour
TIM: I love how beautiful and also how bombastic the riff is in this tune. True Epic Rock.
TRENT: Hugh had the main chords for the verse, but I was determined not to play the obvious chords. Tim and I sat in rehearsal and didn't leave until we came up with something other than the standard DCG chord voicings.
DALE: The Video: we didn't see the end of it for a week… never meet the kids in it, and the producer at the time gave mea real problem about the beer after our day of shooting. The best outro we have as far as jamming goes.
HUGH: We had so much time to waste on the shoot for this video. I sat and wrote "Pathetic Pair" sitting in the flooded bedroom… then Trent and I came up with another song: "Dale's got a hand for a penis"-we really did.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: Lyrics like these are hard to come by these days. It has a monk chant like I've never heard even monks do!
Blonde and Blue
TIM: This bassline was done in one take. It's not at all difficult technically, so I had to give it some kind of dynamic throughout. Some friends of ours were going out east for an extended motorcycle vacation. I just imagined them all ridin' down the highway and what an amazing feeling of freedom that is.
DALE: The first track that I recorded after hearing my father died. One take-next! I think of him and our relationship when I hear or play this tune.
TRENT: I love singing harmonies. My favourite in this song is the last "my heart is yours" over the chord change to the G before the "ooh ooh"-I love the way that it hangs. Another interesting thing about this song, well maybe it's not interesting, is that there's an A (a couple of guitars plucking away) droning through the entire song. Once you hear it, you'll always hear it-ah hah.
Crew notes:
AL: I remember hearing a demo of this song on the bus after a show out West. I remember being under the influence of a music enhancing substance, turning to Trent and telling him, "That one moved me."
Cemetery
TRENT: We're playing a show in Winnipeg when this guy stage dives and smacks his head on the barricade between the stage and the audience, he falls to the ground, has a seizure, then he stops moving. I remember thinking "Oh man, how morbid and tasteless. I'm watching some guy die while we're playing Cemetery. Shouldn't we stop?" But then he got up. I hear he's all right now.
TIM: We were playing this song at some festival and in between the end chorus lines "lookin' for love" and "went down to the cemetery" we sang "Ready for Love!!!" really loud in Cockney accents like from "Clockwork Orange," laughing our heads off at the same time. This is a great example of "road fever," which is like cabin fever but on tour.
DALE: Bruce McDonald and the Video: he forgot I was in the band. ed… oh yeah, I was…
HUGH: We weren't sure about Dale yet. He had been in the band only a couple of months at this point, hmmm… maybe we shouldn't put him in the video, he may be gone next week… Dale is now a Headstone for life-but he'll always be "The New Guy." Check the song writing credits-Pete Bourne went on to play with Circle C.
Crew notes:
KEVIN: I have always hated watching people on the subway "rocking out" to the songs on their Discman. When I listen to this song while on the transit system, I become that guy. I think it's the drums? You should see me when they do it live.
And that's it! :)