The American Professionals' Chuck Lindo unravels the stories behind the songs of Faking It
"Fade It On"
I had the little chick-chick-chick riff floating around for awhile. It was something that I’d just always play when I picked up a guitar. When I sat down to try and use it, I decided to come up with a song that deliberately had fewer chords than I normally use, just to see if I could do it. Showing some restraint and maturity, you see, stepping away from my usual “chord per word” formula.
The lyric idea seems (Seems? Who’s song is this, anyway?) to pertain to opening up an important issue in a conversation but then not following through with it, letting the opportunity pass. Sort of a not striking while the iron’s hot type of deal: “Yeah, I said that, but maybe if we just silently watch it squirm around on the ground in front of us for a while, it’ll just wither and die.” “Fading it on,” meaning introducing the topic more gently and fully expecting to see it through, seemed to be a much more mature way of handling things. Not spooking the horse, so to speak. Of course, I still don’t do that...
"That Would Be Me"
Remember in college basketball when a guy would get a foul called on him and he’d raise his hand for the scorekeeper? I always thought that was a really cool, gentlemanly mea culpa situation. Maybe it was just a rule, I don’t know, but the idea really appealed to me.
So after many years of being a self-centered, boorish ass, shoring up my delicate ego with the appearance of good intentions, I had an epiphany. Perhaps somebody said something, maybe my girlfriend hurled something across the room at me, I can’t remember now (such a blessed defense mechanism...). But I looked up and allowed myself to notice that I wasn’t quite the neat guy I thought I was. So once I came to that realization, the rest just flowed. “Oh, you mean it’s not all about me? Well, now that you put it that way...” So yeah, I had a lot of atoning to do, but first comes the outright guilty plea, throwing myself on the mercy of the court. I guess it’s a start.
I had fun doing the trumpets in the middle 8. I hadn’t played trumpet since my junior year of high school, so thank God for multiple takes.
"We Flew"
I had the main chord change of this laying around in my “parts bin” for a long time. Years. I went so far as to record it for Faking It without even having any melody or lyrics. Figured it’d just “come to me” later in a blast of raging artistic fury... So, six months later, I had every other song recorded, mixed and ready to go, and still hadn’t finished this bugger. The night before I was scheduled to do the vocals, I went down to my weird little practice space at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco with my four track, a pad of paper, and a 40 oz. Duty bound, I would not leave the place until I had the song finished to my satisfaction. I said to myself, “Self, it’s put up or shut up time.” Six hours later, I emerged from my hole, did not see my shadow, and went home. Procrastination is such a powerful drug, but you know, as much as I can occasionally pull something off like that, I don’t really need it. I’m slowly learning to do okay stuff without that factor involved, but man, ADD is a real thing, do not be fooled.
Anyway, so the song’s about love.
"Can't Hang Around"
I’ve always liked the idea of juxtaposing the intimate with the grandiose. I never had any doubt that this tune would be book ended with one acoustic guitar and a voice. This one was easily the most actualized song on the record as far as the arrangement is concerned, before I ever set foot in the studio. Pretty much paint-by-numbers by that point. It’s sort of like the Monty Python brontosaurus skit: "It’s very small on one end, gets very, very big in the middle, and then small again on the other end." My friend David Reidy, who had played in a very early incarnation of the band, did the second guitar break, the one in harmony with all the arpeggios. Kicked supreme ass on it in like 10 minutes, I kid you not. He came in to check up on me in the studio, I had my guitar and amp all miked up and he just grabbed the guitar and let it rip. He’s an attorney now here in LA, and that’s criminal (no pun intended). That freak should be making music. Bastard.
"Space Between"
More professional musings on procrastination. Two of my favorite things in the world, besides cute fluffy kittens and my lovely wife, are magazines and beer. I really think that’s what heaven will be like if I can finagle my way in there. Just loads of current magazines (and the occasional, well-placed, serendipitous vintage ones) and an endless supply of 34-degree lager in clean Imperial Pint glasses.
So beer and magazines are a go-to favorite when I’m blowing off what I’m “supposed” to be doing. I think we all sometimes tend to create some artificial resistance for ourselves, to keep stuff interesting and challenging and all. Kind of like hopscotch when there are a lot of stones down. I really, seriously, am trying to move past this phase in my life. I guess coming up with this song was part of my therapy, a little exorcism maybe. But I have to admit, I’m still “using” sometimes... Y’know, just a little at parties and stuff...just a social procrastinator, nothing serious...I’ll finish this paragraph later...
We used that program “Reason” for the drums and percussion on this track, then Gregg Anderson played some real drums on the chorus and outro. Pretty cool program, and cheap, too. All the weird noises were just (engineer) Patrick Conway and me banging on shit. We had a little USB keyboard to control the synth sounds in Reason, but then we ran all that through my guitar pedal board and danced around on that rather randomly. Couldn’t replicate it if we tried.
I did the solo at the end with my amp on 11 (it really does go to 11) and the control room door open. I stood in the hallway between the live room and the booth and just kicked the snot out of my Strat, not really worrying about what I was playing. I didn’t think we’d keep any of it, so I just didn’t give a crap. So we kept it. Great...
"Faking It"
I was kind of hoping this song would come out all Westerbergian, but I’m not sure if it did. Maybe a tambourine would have helped. I like playing it a lot still. It’s bouncy and a lot of fun.
The lyric is somewhat about those artsy, alt-country/right-brained, flighty, disassociated types that seemed to dot the landscape a while back. Some seemed to me to be feigning and deliberately obscuring their work for the appearance of artistic integrity. I mean, c’mon man, you know you can actually sing, why don’t you just drop the pretense and be done with it? Come in from the cold, son: you’re a popster. Be it. Live it.
To some degree, that’s sort of happened. It’s nice to see.
"Don't Let It Bring You Down"
My siblings had a copy of Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush album spinning seemingly constantly in the early '70s. Weird household I grew up in. Not so much the cast of characters, more the age span. My dad was 50 when I was born and my oldest sister was already 16. I wound up being sort of pan-generational. Anyway, that’s had a big influence on my musical upbringing.
So I have a deep, visceral attachment to Young's record, and this is one of my favorite songs from it. I thought about covering it as I walked down to Hyde Street one sunny day, listening to the record on my Walkman. Once I got to the studio, I just couldn’t get away from the idea, and hell, there I was in one of them-there fancy recording studios, why not just whip up a rendition right then and there? Trouble was, we didn’t have any drums, we didn't have any of my guitar amps, and I wasn’t totally sure if I could pull up the lyrics exactly in my head. So Patrick and I made a loop on my delay pedal, using bass for the kick drum, some chinky guitar for the snare, and then some slides and wacky stuff for the sound effects. Then we needed a guitar amp. Neil Young uses an old '50s Fender Deluxe and it turns out that there was one up in the reverb room at Hyde that seemed to be sitting in there forever. We, uh, sort of “borrowed” it. Turns out it belongs to Mark Kozelek of the Red House Painters. Sorry for being un-groovy and using it without asking, but damn, listen to that thing.
So we did the guitar and bass really fast, then we needed to cut some vocals. Patrick whipped out this creaky old '50s Neumann from the mic closet and flew it up on the stand. Badass mic. I stood away from it and essentially whispered the vocals. The harmonies are really super close together, but it wasn’t too hard to do being that quiet and all. (Harder than hell to do live at this point. Maybe I should’ve thought about that...)
Whole thing, alpha to omega, took about three hours. I did fudge some of the lyrics a bit, plus the main chord change is backwards. Oops.
So I’m feeling all high on myself, thinking I’m just so damn clever for doing this semi-obscure cover, and the next day I go for drink at a fancy restaurant in Union Square. Over the PA comes Annie Lennox singing “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.” I did a total spit-take and just got about this big (index finger and thumb about one-half inch apart). So it turns out, this cover’s not only on her record of cover tunes, it’s also on the American Beauty soundtrack. D'OH!
I’m still glad I did it.
"Outstanding Day"
Here’s one of the first songs I ever came up with. You can tell because there’s like 10,000 chord changes in it. It started out as more of a rock tune, then I decided to go all Commodores on the record, more or less as an exercise, or maybe even as a bit of a joke. The idea was to do it like that, but really effectively and totally free of irony. It was working out great until I went to do the lead vocals. I sounded like such a dumbass trying to sing that way, that I just scrapped the whole idea, put some guitars on it and recut the vocal, just singing it like “me.” Worked out okay. There’s some cool Lionel Richie-worthy Rhodes on there still, but it’s pretty buried. One of these days I’ll make a mix of it using all that stuff.
The lyrical gist is that I was having a shitty day but I really wanted to be out in public, so “please, just ignore me.” Not meaning to spoil your fun, you see.
"Big Surprise"
This was supposed to be sort of a torch song in reverse. I don’t recall the exact genesis, but it started with the I-minor-IV change that all those popsters are so damned fond of. It’s like your instant ticket to Beatleville if used properly (or improperly, for that matter). I usually try to avoid it, or at least obscure it as much as possible if I do lean on it.
Lots of cute little changes in the chords. I think I was trying to show off to myself or something. Major here, minor there, little diminished thingies, a modulation for the guitar break, etc. I do remember chuckling a little when I was putting it together, thinking how my friend David was going to point at me and say “cheeky” in his little Irish accent when he heard it.
The reverb on the backing vocals is a huge EMT plate unit down in the basement at Hyde Street. Very BW approved. Tube mics + Neve + big-ass pieces of steel = glory.
"Beginning To End"
I intended for this to be a bluegrass song. Trouble is, I don’t know bluegrass from zoysia, therefore it became a rock song. It’s very fast and helps to prove that, at one time, I played in a “rock band.”.
I think I must have been drunk when I did the lyrics because I can’t quite tell what I was getting at. It’s something pertaining to the elliptical nature of many aspects of life.
"Head of a Pin"
Hey! I allowed myself to play some trumpet again on this song. Mind you, I played into a mic, which we ran into my delay pedal, into a little Fender Champ, into another mic, into the board. I need all the Jackson Pollack, art damage hoo-ha I can muster to salvage my “playing”.
We used the Reason program again for the sequenced parts. Some nice reverse textures in there, including some guitar. So easy to do that these days. You used to have to flip the tape over, now it’s all digital. Well, I did do most of the guitar effects stuff “live” using my trusty Line 6 delay pedal. It’s my “Desert Island” effects box, if you know what I mean. I’m a little hooked.
The song is about the grinder that is the modern working world, and the difficulties that some people of a more sensitive nature may face. Sometimes all they need is a little sponsorship to help get a foot in the door, and then, once over that hump, they can flourish.
"Soon"
More guilt in a nice bouncy rock package. I’m pretty pleased with the bridge. It was a bit of a stretch for me with all the pseudo-contrapuntal stuff in there, but it worked out okay. I added the “needer needer needer” guitar thing last because it seemed like it needed something. I think that was a good idea.
"Super Chicken Theme"
To me, the best Jay Ward cartoon. Truly strange and subversive. This isn’t on the record, but I’ll post it on the American Professionals website soon.
“If I had any super vision, Fred, I wouldn’t be in this fix.” - Henry Cabot Henhouse III
Chuck Lindo/The American Professionals
May 14, 2005