Head West Acoustic Demos
For the heck of it, I’ve decided to post the acoustic demos for each song from Head West to YouTube*. These are the live, crudely recorded outlines I give the players before we begin rehearsing and recording an album. I also listen to them repeatedly to tweak lyrics and arrangements and plot specific instrumental parts and production ideas.
Writing is a solitary pursuit for me. The first person to hear these songs was my son Owen, who sat with me in my studio late one night, hitting the record button. Then my wife listened, then the players, etc. At each step, I had a sick feeling in my stomach as I waited for reactions. At this stage of the process, I find myself repeatedly saying, "These are very rough versions; they're going to sound better than this." I'm saying this as much to myself as to the listener; confidence has never been my strong suit.
There were key, tempo, and lyrical changes between recording these demos and the final product. My guitar parts are a sloppy mashup of the rhythm, bass, percussion, and lead parts I hear in my head. The solo sections are all left open to allow lead players room to experiment.
Listening back to these demos is humbling. I like the songs, but I’m constantly reminded that I'm a mediocre guitar player, and my pitch and timing are often sketchy. I do, however, love some of the musical fuck-ups and lyrical stumbles ("Checked my cash at the Cromwell" is a personal favorite).
These recordings certainly don't bear repeated listens. They're just a way to share a piece of the process (at least MY process) of writing and recording an album. Listening to these versions will make you appreciate the brilliant contributions of the players and studio personnel who eventually brought the songs to life.
Let me wrap up by saying to anyone who listens to these demos before listening to the final album cuts: these are very rough versions; they end up sounding better than this. For easy comparison, we paired up the YouTube videos of the acoustic demos with the lyrics videos for the final album version in the video queue on the website.
* I didn’t demo Texas Won’t End because of some peculiarities to the song that I felt would be easier to show to each player in person.