PRODUCTION NOTES

The song POWER is essentially a product of my feelings around the United States' cultural and political environment in 2020. I express my frustration, cynicism, and anger at what was happening in our country when I got into this song. At the root of much of what is wrong in my mind is a lust for power perhaps captured best in a lyric from the song — “it never gets enough, it always wants more…” 

POWER began as a mass of ideas that I threw onto several pages. I asked KENT AGEE to co-write it with me and help make sense of it. One of my favorite lines in the song is KENT’S — “Fear will lock the door, Love can knock it down” — we wrote, rewrote, trimmed, deliberated and tried to make every line count. I am proud of the song. I’ll admit to expressing my cynical side in this tune, which is not my nature, and I try and come back around at the end of the song with a piece of “With that Moon Language” by HAFIZ to assert my belief that in the now and always it’s all about love. My own cynicism cannot be overridden by my belief that love is our greatest power.

I wrote the music on acoustic guitar and played it on an acoustic live for the band before we tracked it. I believe all I said to them before was — “I mean this song” - and what you hear is what they laid down out of the gate. Their energy and rawness is what I wanted, and they captured it instinctively. I will never be grateful enough for the opportunity to record with such phenomenal artists. VICTOR INDRIZZO (drums) and TONY LUCIDO (bass) lay down a meaty rhythm section inside which JERRY McPHERSON and KRIS DONEGAN on electric guitars could express the cynicism, anger, and tension the tune demanded. McPherson played all the delay and tremolo infused parts and unleashed the inspired and mind-blowing solo on an Ovation acoustic guitar through his full effects rig of distortion, delay, fuzz, and whatever else he uses to attain his wizardry. DONEGAN lays down the stabbing power chords that set the tone throughout. BOBBY CAMPBELL weaved in some otherworldly synth sounds that round it out. OWEN LEWIS engineered and captured some amazing sounds, especially on drums. K.S. RHOADS, BUTTERFLY BOUCHER, and JEREMY LISTER came up with a catchy background vocal package. ROSS COLLIER engineered my lead vocals and even sang some backgrounds on the verses. TIM LAUER produced, guided my vocal, and mixed the song. I hope it’s a song that makes you feel something.