Edewaard - Renominom Junction (Track By Track)
Renominom Junction:
This is our second album, we've released two albums this year! Putting our set (not including B-sides) at 22 official songs. Not bad for being a band since February. To be fair though all these songs from both records had been bottled up within me. Some were written, some were waiting to be. Without the band behind me I couldn't imagine where I'd be or where this album would be if anywhere! They are the best and if I had to display our skills to the Lord himself, this would be our album of choice. This album documents the journey through ones' mind. One in which we all take nightly. "Renominom Junction" was a term written down in Jered's (our guitar player's) dream journal. He was comically reading me a series of dreams he had in said journal one night, then he came across: "Renominom Junction". When he said that I initially chuckled and asked what the hell it meant. He said it's a place he visited in his dreams, it's where all your dreams are stored…
Then it hit me. I knew the majority of songs on this album were dreamy and/or referred to some lack of stability in ones' mind: Masquerade, Dear You, Crazy, Under Water etc. etc.
Every song either references waking up, dreams, confusion, and love.
So my brain started churning, "Hmmmmmm, that's going to be the name of the album."
I guess the concept of a place where ALL your most memorable, fearful, & emotional dreams and memories are placed into one, intrigues the hell out of me. Wouldn't that be the most intense experience ever?
So this album Renominom Junction, is the story of a character who's just been thrown into a world of fun & trouble, tears & smiles, monsters & moments, and anything else he's ever known to be daunting yet exciting. We hope everyone can listen to this album and hear the theatricality and romanticism buried within it, because it was written when I was in-between my best artistically, & my worst emotionally. Here is the story of Renominom Junction.
Crazy:
I wrote Crazy in pieces. I was living with my ex-girlfriend at the time in Eugene, I was completely miserable aside from our dogs who kept me sane. I guess I had hit the road block for relationships, and it took the last one going wrong for me to realize I needed to get back on the song-writing train. I began with Crazy & Greener.
Our relationship was coming to a close, and contrary to popular belief, I started to write a song that reflected ALL of my previous relationships (not her specifically). Lyrically it's a very sad-happy song about a flat-out crazy girl, but as the track progresses you'll hopefully notice the main character in the song eventually has nothing but sympathy for this girl.
I had the skeleton of the song primarily written for a while. But I never had a chorus that I felt did the song justice, then one night I was literally laying awake in a daze of insomnia, and just when I thought I couldn't be any more empty-minded…the line "And she still thinks she sees Michael Jackson dancin' in the streetlights, and that her mother don't care." Ultimately buttoning the song together. So the juxtaposition I put myself in is: I clearly have crumby relationships and/or terrible taste in women, but had I not, these songs wouldn't have had enough fuel to accelerate them to the level they managed to reach! So in the grand scheme of things, I guess I should thank all the heartbreakers out there! The hooks on this track are phenomenal but you're not left with what I say stuck in your head, it's what Katie says/belts: "I'm not crazy!" I can't tell you how many times we've finished gigs and heard people in the audience redundantly singing to themselves & their friends her line: "I'm not crazy!" Love it & love her!
Under Water:
Under Water is the perfect example of taking pieces from songs that you wrote, but never really liked, and combining them to make a Megazord of songs (Power Rangers reference for the 90's kids). The verses were completely fresh, I had just written them, along with the songs' chord progressions, but like Crazy it lacked a punchy-chorus that would satisfy me. So I got to writing and eventually got what I wanted at the expense of many late nights staring at the notepad app on my iPhone. Once the choruses were out of the way I took the ending build-up "he loved her and they watched the world burn", from an old song I had never finished when I was 18 or 19. I had always loved the dynamic of that simple little line, and it's reference to the elements blended well in contrast to the very "aquatic" track. I guess at the end of the day I have had so many dreams of drowning, even though I'm not very aqua-phobic. I always find myself falling in water at night. It's a very daunting thought so I assume my subconscious latched on to the line, "I felt like I woke up under water", as the worst of all feelings. Drowning is often described as euphoric yet scary (idk how credible that could possibly be) but the idea of waking from a dream only to find you ARE in fact under water is frightening to me. However, in this song (because I love me some metaphors) I use the feeling of drowning as a way for the character in the song to describe what he feels for the woman he "never should have saw". It's a dark track. One of my darkest.
The Ground:
Very similar to the format of "Turquoise" off our debut EP Never Take Back, released last March, this song was going to be it's "Part 2" if you will. When played consecutively they complement each other very well. Never Take Back ended with the track Turquoise and hopefully left folks (including myself) hanging…in a way I think we were all ready to travel to Renominom Junction together! So The Ground was a song intended to continue the story of the sulky lovers found in Turquoise.
I don't know which track I like more however, they are both essential tracks to the love story. However, they are diverse enough tracks that you can listen to them both individually and identify with them on different levels, not just the story provided.
Dear You:
I wrote this song when I was 19, putting it at 4 years ago. Why didn't I put it on our debut album since I had it written? Simply because I didn't like it. It's definitely a cheesy song lyrically, but it grew on me after everyone in the band convinced me to resurrect it. I guess what ultimately ripped me away from disliking it, was the initial reason as to why I didn't like it…it was a true story! I woke up at about 4 in the morning from a dream I was having, and boom, I wrote the lyrics for Dear You in about 15 minutes. I went back to bed and figured if I woke up with the song stuck in my head, it must be catchy enough to keep. So…I kept it because it got stuck my head, (classic Edewaard approach to writing)! I recorded a demo of it years ago but it sounded empty and dull to me, so I scrapped the whole song until the opportune moment. Which was Renominom! I thank the band for that one, that track wouldn't have come together so well without them. It's my cheesy, emotional, dream-ballad. Had it been on any other one of my albums, I'm not sure it would have fit, but for an album so thematic in referencing dreams, it worked perfect! Katie of course played the vocal role of the apparition in my dream, and damn it…her voice was eerily perfect for the part. As always!
Hotel Room:
Hotel Room I wrote when I was also about 19, I had gone through (what was then known as) a "bad" break-up, and was being a little whiny songwriter about it so I sat at my piano and began writing! It probably took me the duration of the finished track to write the whole song, it just poured out of me naturally. To be honest it's one of my favorite sets of lyrics I've ever written. It's just simple yet descriptive. It's all a story I wrote, none of it was based in reality, yet because of its ambiguity I hope it makes it possible for almost anyone to identify with it. The song (like most of our songs) tell of a character who was just minding his own business at a bar or pub, and ends up seeing a damaged-drunk girl who is in need of help, so he provides that and takes her to her room. Simple, imaginative, and relatable. The song even displays a short-section of Katie singing the part of the damaged woman who can no longer dream, for reasons unknown. She sings it with such disdain in one's self, I will always love that track and especially her voice. So it's a win-win in my eyes. I hope everyone enjoys it on the level we do.
Masquerade:
This is in my top 4 or 5 on the album. It's right up there with Lightning, Crazy & Under Water. Masquerade is one of the deepest tracks on Renominom, and I'm not sure that was even intentional.
I wanted to write about two lovers who were growing apart, to the point where they've almost become unrecognizable to one another. Perhaps from the various changes they've gone through over time. "It's a long way back, we both know that", the main character says in the closing of the song. Which I felt is a reference to the lack of faith the main character has in returning to the love they once had. It's musically simple but lyrically conflicting. Katie doesn't do much harmony on it and that was her choice because she liked the song so much when it was just me, but just like every other track on Renominom, I put Katie on it and BOOM it gets even better than when I had initially wrote it. She's got soul. Every lyric was carefully chosen for this one, all the way down to the ifs, ands, & buts. Every time I hear it, if I'm not imagining the tale it tells, I'm immediately taken back to Jered and I in LA when we began our summer tour. The traffic, Santa Monica, the beach…the smog, all of it. The power of music makes every day nostalgia feel like Deja Vu.
Friend Zone:
Back to bragging about my girl Katie! I wanted a song that would put her out into the open at concerts and really do her voice justice. But keep it thematically congruent with our other tracks. I knew I couldn't just NOT sing (excuse the double-negative) on a track for the sake of consistency in our sound, but I knew I wanted a duet.
Last spring I began writing Friend Zone, with some verse scraps taken from a song I wrote years ago called Taste of Blue. The song was decent but far too pretentious & poppy for my liking. So I took the lines I dug from Taste of Blue & threw them into Friend Zone where they'd appropriately fit.
Once that was done I wrote the bridges and the choruses in no-time. I kept the song on the back-burner until a girl (Katie) was recruited. I then made her record it after she heard it maybe 2 times, because I don't want people over-thinking anything, I want our albums naturally done. I'm a quick worker so when I finish a track, I don't give the team much time to learn the songs or study them, I like to keep it adventurous when they record. So I throw Katie into a room with the necessary equipment and say "sing what/where you want". I always trust she'll make the right decisions on vocal placement and harmony choices. But with this specific track she really wailed. With my quiet raspy voice, and her intense diva vocals, we make an interesting but fun combo on this song. Without her this track wouldn't have made Renominom. Jered has a really nice, simple, yet sweet, lead-guitar hook in the chorus too. Bringing the melodies of the song together. To us, this one is also a winner.
Pitiful Joe:
There's a lot to this song, and yet nothing to this song. I wanted a simple, sad-happy, classic Edewaard track, and this is one of them. Before my music career, I was/still am, a licensed tattoo artist in Eugene. Before I recorded Never Take Back and was still working, my buddy Chris and I were miserably slaving away for an ungrateful, irresponsible, alcoholic manager. He had just recently got divorced, and was going through a mid-life crisis. One day without notice or warning, he comes into the shop (rare for him to ever drop by) and tells Chris and I we have been evicted…3 days ago. As aggravating as it was hearing that, it was a blessing in disguise because from that, I was able to cut the ties officially with that shop and have the proper fire under my butt to pursue my music. Having said that, his name was Joe and he loved classic Rock. Not Petty, Springsteen, or The Beatles. But Skynyrd, .38 Special, The Doobie Brothers…you get it.
That, along with the reference to opening a tattoo shop & getting evicted, were the only references to reality made in that song. Everything else was for the phonetics of the lyricism and/or the catchiness of the tune. But I think I managed to maintain an element of sincerity and realism to the track without blatantly sh*t-talking my former "boss"! Right? Eh, either way works for us!
Greener:
This is a very emotional song for me. My ex at the time and I were splitting up, we lived together and had dogs together. The worst part, was the dog I fell in love with most was legally her's before I got there, but seeing as she was never home and always at work, I took care of the gorgeous Pit Bull myself and we became besties. We did everything together, I loved that little guy. Her and I ended up getting another Pit mid-way through our relationship, but our relationship had decayed so badly that eventually I needed to move out. It was hard leaving the dogs. Still is ( I would have taken them had she let me). I want to go visit them from time to time but aside from seeing my ex, I don't want the little buggers thinking "Dad's home!" and then get false hope (since they're routine-oriented animals). So the catch 22 of it is, I loved them so much…that I felt like I had to leave them alone.
It may not seem like much of a preface for a break-up song, considering the song has nothing to do with dogs! But it really is the perfect emotional mind-set to be in, when you're writing a song about not wanting to go anywhere yet knowing you have to. At the time I was writing it, I borderline despised the girl I was seeing because she had grown so cold towards me. So the main reason why I was upset to leave the world we had built together, was because I was so attached to the house & the dogs. I used the pain that I was feeling as a conduit to explain the character's confusion in the song, because that's exactly what he is, confused. "Is purpose in our hand, or is purpose earned as a man?", he asks himself. The song states over & over, "Too many people are wishing they were with somebody else." The eery thing about that line is we don't know if he's referring to his ex-lover, for perhaps leaving with another man, or if the main character himself is getting the urge to look elsewhere & he recognizes it's unethical yet can't fight the urge to love another. I guess we'll never know considering I don't even know, and I wrote the damn thing!
Never the less this is a very emotional song for me. Simply about watching the world you've created with someone crumble, and knowing that life isn't always better than what you have. We should all learn to cherish who and what we love. Especially in the moment. Also, Katie's vocals on this song are extraordinary. I told her "think RnB" and BANG, I get multiple layers of beautiful, harmonious, vocal tracks that compliment every substantial line in that song. The Stevie to my Lindsey.
Tangled:
When I was 21 I took a short break from producing and writing rock records after the band I had (Reclaiming Jane) broke up. Luckily, I have this dear friend who was a Football player for the Oregon Ducks, Blake Cantu. He was recruited there from Texas, I met him through my friend Brian Jackson (also on the Ducks). Blake was a phenomenal rapper and when he got injured playing Football, I was in between tattoo shops. So we decided to work on various Hip-Hop tracks. I learned a lot about producing simply because Hip-Hop was such an exposed art form. It's all about the vocals being up front and the beat to be bumping, yet clear, since you're dealing with sub-frequencies. Eventually the itch to go back to my roots hit me hard, and Blake went back home to Texas, so when Edewaard was established and Never Take Back was released, I started showing the bandmates potential tracks for the next album (Renominom). I had a Hip-Hop-esque track called Tangled that Blake and I had done a version of. But it was a very thug-life version since Blake was on a verse, and for a white kid from Texas, he went hard as hell when it came to rapping. However, like all my songs, I was able to recreate it simplistically on an acoustic guitar, and showed the band the song. They all identified with it's silly fairy tale references, and it's melodic chorus. So I dusted it off, wrote a version with less gangster & more grunge, and made it a track on the album! Brennon & Jason play off of each other really well on this track when performed live. It's quite a spectacle. And Katie's harmonies tie a nice ribbon around this track, as she does with all of them. I asked her to channel one of her favorites Lauryn Hill, and that's exactly what you get if you listen attentively to the back-track on this song.
The Hurt:
I began writing this song on my parents deck one day. I didn't finish it then, nor got very far at all. I maybe had the first few lines and the simple guitar riff laid out and that was it. I knew I wanted it to be simple as hell, but different. Out of all the songs on Renominom, if I had to pick a track I'd assume most people would go "Wtf?" at, it'd be this one. I, however, love this song. Mainly for the nostalgia it brings me. It takes me back to a night in Meridian, ID. The band and I were on tour about to play Boise & Caldwell, and we were staying at a promoter's house. It was the beginning of July, hot as hell at night, but the stars were incredible. The band and I laid in the grass and on the sidewalk staring at the sky and spotting shooting stars. It sounds corny but it was the perfect setting for me to finish that song. So I did. Right then & there. I then played it for the gang and we all officially inducted it into the roster for Renominom Junction. I even picked it over a couple B-sides called Pretenders, & You're Whatever. Which is funny to me, because melodically, I think both of those songs are "catchier" but in my opinion, they didn't fit thematically with the feel of the rest of the album (so I'm sure they'll both be on our next album).
I think the moral of the story in this song is, no matter how hard the characters f*cked each other over, they still wish for one last night together. Simply, to make passionate love to each other. To me, the climactic ending of the song sounds like they finally get their last shot at one another, and it's a beautiful thing…but they know it'll soon be over & the hurt will go on. They're both human, no one's at fault because they simply aren't compatible, but deep down they wish they were. They wish they could change their flaws and shove aside their differences, but they know that's for the birds at this point, and they are a part of a generation doomed for a lack of monogamy. It's a scary thought, but an interesting concept. So thank you Idaho for the inspiration!
Lightning:
This is it…the last track, and the last stop on the train that takes us through Renominom Junction.
This is my favorite song on the album. The dance-esque beat and melodies of this song were intended for a Hip-Hop track I was producing a couple years back. It was in a different key and I only had the chorus laid out. A couple friends wrote some rap-verses for the prototype beats I had made, but no recording of Lightning was ever in stone until Edewaard started working with it. I tucked the piano track back behind the chugging and galloping of the acoustic guitar ensemble, and wrote a verse that would do the post-apocalyptic melodies justice. I wanted it simple, and dark. I like to end our shows and our albums with a lasting imagery painted in our listeners' minds. Pure manifestation of ones' own imagination. We just provide the music to do so. Lightning's lyricism is intended to take us through a roller coaster of emotions, almost in an attempt to reflect on the diverse array of feelings that the other songs on the album provided us along the way. It's the last run, the last trek through the depths of our dreams. The storm theme is the shaky reality of waking up, associated with the possibility that you've fallen in love with a woman in/of your dreams, yet her unpredictability is driving you away but at the same time, you can't help but be drawn to it! Lightning is an unpredictable, beautiful, but scary element. When it arrives, you know thunder quickly follows.
That seemed like an epic way to end our second album. With the character from the album being tossed into a storm of emotion, then leaves you with a cliffhanger at the end.
"Then you told me that you thought I lost it and I did, the way that anybody would."
A complete lyrical revert to the FIRST track of the song, Crazy. The album starts with the main character sympathizing for a “crazy” ex, yet the album ends with said character questioning his OWN sanity. WHAT!? Twilight Zone!?
The way the song ends is reminiscent of Turquoise from our first album. It brings the record to a comfortable close, but at the same time, you're either left wanting to hear Part III, or hopefully you're left wanting to start the album over for another journey through Renominom. The placing of the tracks was a tedious one, but at the end of it all, Lightning was the best candidate for a closing track. Everyone in the band does a phenomenal job on it and I couldn't be more grateful to have them behind me on these songs.
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