About "Away"...

I always wanted to write a song that had one theme that went through the whole thing. This one does, and it's (fortunately or unfortunately) kind of "Smashing Pumpkins"-sounding. I do like the riff, and I think the rest of the fellas in Slaphappy did an excellent job of giving the song what it needed. I think we played it together a grand total of 6 times before recording it. We did basic tracks all together, then added guitar parts and replaced the scratch vocal. I was really afraid how it would work out, especially since it was MY GUITAR RIFF and I wouldn't be playing any guitar on the track. I played an Ernie Ball/Music Man 5-string bass (not mine) on this one. At the time, I strictly played a 4-string Fender Jazz. That made tracking kind of weird for me, but it worked out. I think Brent did a great job. Mike nailed the vocals (I doubled him in the choruses) and Jon is "Mr. Automatic" on the drums. I didn't really like the way it was mixed, but that's partially my fault, because I just couldn't make it clear to Paul, the engineer, what I wanted to hear, so he did it his way. It's not bad, but it's not as good as it could have been. The lyrics pretty much explain themselves. I wrote it when I wanted to leave Jacksonville...life wasn't working out to plan when I first moved down there. My life's just great now, though...

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