Writing “Take All You CAN”

The beginning of writing this new album “Take All You Can” starts after driving through the start of a worldwide pandemic while on tour of the US in 2020. After rounding our way across the US and West Coast our tour was cut short halfway through after our show in Phoenix, AZ due to COVID. We got stuck in El Paso, TX and it took us 36hrs to get back to Virginia. The world had come to a stop and watching the news showed a picture of hysteria that we didn’t really see on the ground during our travels or at home. It was very surreal. When we got back home, we just continued to play and jam. Playing and jamming is our way of stress relief and life didn’t change much for us as a band except for not having any obligations to tour, play shows or other demands from the industry. That gave us the opportunity to focus strictly on jamming and writing without the distractions to rehearse or other band business. It almost felt like the time when we first started playing together, no obligations, just purely playing to play and having plenty of time to be patient and focus our full attention on writing new material. We bought some new gear to record some demos and set up our rehearsal studio/practice space (AKA “The Shedio”) Brenden O’Neill (our lead guitarist) took the helm to setup the “Shedio” for a livestream to play four new tunes for our fans and ourselves since COVID ruined our tour and future live shows. The livestream was a success and proved to Brendan and the rest of us that we could record our new album ourselves. He was essential in engineering the recording of this record. Every time we jammed or worked out the writing, composition, and demos of new songs he would hit record. When we got stuck or wanted to take a break from hammering out new songs, we would jam off-the-cuff and capture it. Just jamming sometimes in the past the live magic would happen but usually ended up being lost forever. Since we recorded every session, we caught a Jem with “Lift Off”, a 9 minute free form jam that was recorded in one take. We all listened and thought ,we should send this to our mixing engineer Ian Watts (special thanks to Ian as his magic is in the mix) and see if it’s usable? He sent it back and we really thought it sounded good for a live setup. We released “Lift Off” in the spring of 2021 and it was well received. So we recorded a version of one of the new songs that we played during the livestream “Never To Return” just like we would in a studio, to see if it was possible to do it ourselves and it turned out really good as well. With this new setup it got us excited because it’s a big deal to be able to record your own album in a comfortable stress free environment with no deadlines or limited budget. “Take All You Can” is our 6th album so we know the process of recording. Recording ourselves gave us the opportunity and time to take focus on the details and put in our best, heartfelt effort. This album has the vibe and energy of a very relaxed band in a very comfortable setting pouring our hearts out in every beat and note. The world was/is in need of love and the lyrics on this album convey this thought in a dark way. We are really excited about the new record. It seems to capitalize on our previous work but stronger writing that really expands into newer territory of tasty bluesy melodies, driving harmonies, and killer song structures that have hooks for days…. We feel like this is our best stuff to date. We can’t wait for people to hear it!.
9 Songs

*Most of the songs lyrics were written on the spot right before they were tracked and Ian Watts named most of the songs when he was mixing them. Just keeping the vibe of how everything just came together and fell in place.
Lyrics written by T.R. Morton and his descriptions of each song below
1) Age of the Idiot- not really sure what this song is about? I envisioned an apocalyptic world like “Mad Max” where everyone panicked and then nuclear bombs destroyed the world.
2) Take All You Can-a love story or a lust story that ends in tragedy. *Brenden’s lead in this song is what makes this song for me.
3) We All Need Rock and Roll-with Covid I think a lot of people found appreciation for the people they care for. This song tells a story about that “your body and my soul, we all need rock and roll!” *I was hearing southern rock when we were first jamming this.
4) Seize The Day- is in my mind about the world and people trying to break you down with negativity, how that negativity draws you in, but you need to persevere and “Seize The Day!” *My favorite parts of this song is Mark’s baseline to start, the breakdown and build in the middle and the dramatic ending with Lenny’s drums.
5) Never To Return-I imagine that there’s a woman on a steep cliff wall, trying to run from an unknown pursuer her hair blowing in the wind, bright lights from an old school police car searching, and the thought of knowing you’re “Never To Return”. Really it’s about quitting a job that I worked for 16 years, the nervous thoughts of what the future will hold and that I will never return. *Funny side bar there is a scream at the end, that returns. Lenny joins me in that scream, see if you can hear it?
6) From The Inside Out- I see this song in an old school video game like “Streets of Rage” songs in that era of video game. Walking down the city streets fighting gangs with denim, leather, chains, knives and nun chucks!
7) Skies So Blue- I was hearing a funky porn track. So I wrote about how to take care of your lady friends….*Brenden and I would battle back and forth with the leads while we were jamming live and figuring out the structure. Ian picked the line out “Skies So Blue” as the title.
8) Coming Home- originally this was about people we knew that had passed recently the line “I know where you are, but don’t know where you been” meaning that I knew that they were in the cemetery but still hadn’t processed they were gone forever. Then Lenny’s father passed away during the recording prior to recording the vocals. That added a more personal story. I’m sure that a lot of people can relate to this song. *The last line made me cry and still gets me when I listen. *Marks baseline makes this song for me.
9) Desert Song- this is another song about the loss of a friend and how it affects you. Brendan and Mark each lost one of their best friends and I could feel their pain. “We are lost without our friends”. *This is one of my favorites, Brenden’s lead is also my favorite lead on the album.