It really shouldn’t work; two former punk-pop stalwarts, Jeff Caudill and Francis Garcia, choose to showcase their development into Americana singer-songwriters by covering songs from each other’s back catalogues. As a way of laying the past to rest, it’s certainly more inventive than most.
Former front-man of California based Gameface, Jeff Caudill, has already earned his spurs with acclaimed 2005 release, ‘Here’s What You Should Do’. Frankly, Caudill could choose to sing the telephone directory and make it sound full of hooks, but he nevertheless chooses wisely. Stand-out track, ‘Minutes Turn To Miles’, taken from the debut album by Garcia’s Drive Til Morning, sees him transform the arrangement into another trademark killer power-pop tune. For his second selection, Caudill reaches further back to Garcia’s earlier incarnation, pop-punk band Yuck, and again zeroing in on the hook, ‘Gone’ hits the bullseye.
Arguably, Garcia has the more difficult task, as he is effectively charged with finding a fresh angle on Caudill’s melodic back catalogue. His first selection, ‘Greentree’, is a coming of age tale taken from Gameface’s mid-1990s breakthrough release, ‘Three To Get Ready.’ With an uplifting brass-section and sixties sounding organ, Garcia successfully finds something new in the song. ‘Stop Writing Songs’, taken from Caudill’s solo release is stripped bare, with a closer look to the lyrics. In the hands of Caudill, it’s another rocking tune, but Garcia delves deeper into the story and successfully taps into its melancholy to make it the most inventive re-reading.
The EP neatly finishes with the co-written and performed title track. A simple, country-tinged number, it has a warm feeling that fully fits the feel of the release. Harking back to the days of photocopied flyers and coloured vinyl, the song affirms their belief that ‘although the memory is fading, the fire still burns inside.’ The sound may not be as urgent or exuberant as before, but it’s as every bit heartfelt, and more fully realised.
It really shouldn’t work, but it most certainly does. The two punks from the 1990s have developed and grown, as they rightly should, and developed new sounds and fresh ideas. ‘I Was The Lead Singer’ is a neat way to wrap the past up and focus in on what is to come in the future.
To purchase the EP:
www.jeffcaudill.com
www.drivetilmorning.net
Jeff and Francis kindly agreed to speak to me about the release:
The idea behind ‘I Was The Lead Singer’ is fairly unusual. How did it come about?
Jeff: I think we were just looking for an excuse to make a record together. We’ve collaborated in small ways in the past and made appearances on each others albums but never something as concrete as this. We were both out doing some shows on the west coast last year and met up in San Francisco. I had been tinkering with the basic verse/chorus of the song ‘I Was The Lead Singer’ for about a week and I wanted him to hear it. Francis and I always commiserate together about being stuck in the punk scene where we started and I thought the song would make a nice “one last hurrah” to the small musical universe we met in well over a decade ago. I had written a verse and the chorus and just gave it to him. A few weeks later he had his verse and a bridge written and it was done. We thought that best way to punctuate this idea and make a record out of it would be to take a shot a covering a song from each other’s back catalogue, and just to round things out, do one of each other’s recent tunes as well. It’s nostalgic as hell and I think it’s awesome.
Francis: As the EP started to take shape, we took the concept of being an 'ex-lead-singer' and just ran with it for the CD; kind of poking fun at this idea of former glory, while being sentimental about it at the same time. We thought reworking our old songs into a modern context would be a good way to further convey the theme of connecting past to present.
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How difficult was it deciding which songs to cover from the other’s back catalogue? Are there particular reasons behind the choices, or was pressure applied by the other party?!
Jeff: I made my picks pretty easily. The song ‘Gone’ by Francis’ band Yuck defines a period of time for me. It takes me right back to ’92 and the good old days when I hadn’t a care in the word – maybe just whose house would we crash at and how much pizza could I afford. And ‘Minutes Turn To Miles’ is right up there with my favorite songs ever. Brilliant. And I was really happy with the choices Francis made. And he knocked them out of the park as far as I’m concerned.
Francis: It was only difficult in that Jeff has tons of great songs in his catalogue and it was tough to narrow it down to just two. I had to be a bit more systematic about picking an older song, so I kind of relied on the nostalgia factor to weed out the high percentage of possibilities. 'Three To Get Ready' was always my favorite Gameface record. On top of that, some of my favorite shows as a member of Fourth Grade Nothing were with Gameface on the 'Three To Get Ready' tour. Once I was able to distill it down to that record, I went with 'Greentree' because the coming-of-age sentiment seemed appropriate. It also seemed like something I could do an interesting interpretation of.
How did you go about recording the title track duet? As you live on opposite coasts of America, was it a difficult process?
Jeff: Francis tracked his 12-string and his vocal parts at his studio in Brooklyn, then sent me a mp3 to use as a guide track to record my guitar and vocals. My drummer Robbie added some tambourine. Then we sent back our individual tracks and he just dropped them in to the master and mixed it. We are living in the digital age folks!
Francis: I downloaded Jeff and Robbie's tracks from an FTP site, added Greg playing pedal steel guitar and did the final mix. As far the level of difficulty - the luxury of rehearsing is always nice. But luckily we know each other's styles well enough to be able to pull it off with minimal face time. Man, if we were both in the same town for more than a day or two and could actually practice before doing shows or recording together, we'd sound sweeter than Buck Owens and Roy Clark on Hee Haw.
As the theme of the EP is about laying the past to rest and moving onwards, what’s up next?
Jeff: Hopefully just more music and more opportunities to collaborate. It’s really what it’s all about now. We’re each working on material for new full-lengths and I’ve always got some extra little project to keep me busy. I don’t see any reason to slow down.
Francis: I tend to think of the EP as a means of acknowledging my history and how it informs who I am today. At the same time, forward-motion is also a big part of my personality. So...I'm currently writing, recording, and getting into a routine of rehearsing with a 6-piece band. I'm hoping to have a new full-length finished by the spring of 2007.
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