Finding a producer is like finding a wife.  You can ask all the right questions but how do you really know if they are the one?  And making music is making love.  It bears all the same healthy and unhealthy emotional vulnerabilities with in it’s process.  This is why you see bands break up while making a record.  Everything gets crazy in a room full of over tired creative types all hopped up on caffeine and afraid of being misrepresented.  But once you find the magic, all the relationships somehow find this beautiful harmony!  The hard part is getting through, together, alive!

Now that we made it through (our last breakup) together and alive we’re looking for that special someone again!

Our update is that we’ve narrowed it down to two.  We’ve talked to the first and I have to be honest, he said all the right things according to me.  I’ve learned over the past few years that you have to hold your cards close to your chest when talking to a new prospect for producer.  I feel like when I’ve said too much it has only supplied them with the right things to say and names to drop when I’m wary of the way things are being produced.  My own words are then used at me to regain my confidence.  It compromises really knowing what they’re envisioning.  And I want to know how they honestly hear it sounding.

So in our talk we let Mike Daly from LA speak.  Mike is currently writing and producing many artists, some with whom he has worked include Whiskeytown (Ryan Adams), Stephen Kellogg, the Pernice Brothers, Ambulance LTD, Patrick Park, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Marie Digby, Georgia, The Plain White T’s, Jessie Baylin and Donavon Frankenreiter.  We asked epic questions of grand proportions and his responses genuinely intrigued me.  There were some amazing things said on the call and it show signs of being an incredible match up.  He could most definitely be the one.  It’s happening so quick though and on one hand it feels like fate but on the other it almost seems to easy.  It feels so fast.  We had hopes for a fast recovery but this is happening very fast.  We have the songs and we’re ready but LA, in two weeks with someone we’ve never met in person!  If all goes well we will be in LA recording by the middle of March!  Can you believe that?

We’ll keep you posted on further updates…

So we played Columbia again tonight. Really I guess it was the first time. We opened for Winston Audio about a month ago and it was awesome. Tonight was the new music night and we got on the bill and killed it. Kent and I may have been a bit tipsy. It is not confirmed yet but either way it was a blast. We made some new friends and hopefully got the opportunity to book more shows. The last time we played it was pouring and the venue had multiple leaks with one right over the stage. Not just the general stage but the exact place I was standing. If i moved the water would drop right on my pedal board or worse right on my Tele pickups. Not awesome was the feeling of the chance of electrocution but I played and survived. Tonight we pulled up to the venue and guess what, rain. It was raining again but not as bad. After talking to the sound guy I felt much better when he told me they had fixed a lot of the leaks and the stage no longer was a sieve but an actual roof. Anyway I guess good things come to those who wait, so columbia we’re coming back and we are going to rock it over and over again. Hope you are ready because we are. See you soon!

Steven

So for the past few months… actually it has been longer than that I would think, my wife and I bought Regina Spektor’s new album “Far”.  I listened to her older album “Begin to Hope” but it was really my wife who listened to it the most.  There are a few songs I would listen to on my own but mostly the songs I heard off that album were because of Jen playing it or Tim and Meagan playing it.  It wasn’t that I did not like it, it was that I just would not ever think of playing it.  Of course on the way home from Asheville after buying the new album Jen played it without stopping and then loaded it on to her ipod immediately after getting home.  Since she had it on her ipod I decided to take the cd for my truck.  For weeks it stayed in my cd player and I listened to it for a long time.  Actually Tim made a joke to me about it still playing in my cd player.  I LOVE IT!  I have listened to it over and over and I still love it.  The songs themselves are really good and simple, even the production is really simple and not overbearing.  It is not trying to be the most complicated or the most artistic and for me it makes it more interesting and gives it more re-listen value.  Her voice is also insanely creative and beautiful.  It kind of reminds me of music that would of been released years ago instead of last year.  Seems that today music is more about how many instruments you can record together to create a song that can never be reproduced live or that has no dynamic because the song is not good enough by itself to begin with.  Yes, in case you are wondering, I am not a huge fan of some of the music that is released today but this cd is extremely worth buying and listening to.  The songs are great, her voice is great, her piano playing is great, the production is great, really it is all great.  There are great upbeat songs and very emotional songs.  I guess something for everyone.

steven.

I was talking to my mom last night and she asks me, “so how did you cut yourself at that show?” Then I read back over my blog today and realized that I didn’t actually tell you how I cut my hand at Workplay.

Well here’s how I think it happened, although I still have no idea when it happened or how I didn’t feel it! If you reference the picture below you will see an arrow pointing at what I think caused the bleeding.  It’s a flat head bolt that keeps the guitar bridge in place.  And it is sharp!  Add that to the fact that I strum my guitar pretty vigorously, especially when I’m dealing with a lot of good energy and you have guitar player with a bleeding hand.  And I don’t really care what they say about how a professional should attack a guitar.  I play like I play, with no reservations!  I’m all in baby!  Now I just have to figure out how to customize the top of that bolt before I lose too much blood.  Any ideas?

If you’re just now coming in on this blog role read the first part of this story here >> While my guitar gently bleeds.

So now you know.

So the show at Workplay (Birmingham AL) was absolutely amazing!  The energy of the place this past Wednesday night was engaging.  If it had to end, “Love You Live” was the best way to end something that was becoming so great.  Live 100.5 played our music when most other stations stuck in the bureaucracy of the industry would never even listen to it because they have no control over what they play on air.  Like it or not!  And when the fans started responding to our song ‘Coming Down’ in Birmingham Alabama, Live 100.5 played it even more!  We were honored to have been a part of this show.  And thank the people at Live 100.5 for everything they did and were trying to do.  It’s sad to see it go.

Now I must have lost myself in the energy of the night because half way through our set I looked down and most of my hand was covered in blood!  I noticed it because I saw splatters on the Workplay stage and I freaked out for a second in my head when I looked at my bloody hand and blood splattered on my guitar.  We started our set with ‘Feel It’.  It was feeling good, no pun intended.  Then we went into ‘Circles’ one of my personal favorite songs to play live.  People were singing the oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohs with us and I may have already started bleeding by this point but I hadn’t noticed yet.  Then after Circles we went into a Johnny Cash cover of ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down’.  That just pushed everything over the top.  The band was tearing this song up!!!  After we finished I notice the blood spots on the stage, then my guitar then I look at my hand and I’m like holy S@%$!  I’m bleeding!  A pretty good bit too.  I had done this once before while we were filming the music video last month so I didn’t completely lose it but I was (as un-rock and roll as it is) a little concerned!  The show must go on and I didn’t feel light headed so I took the band into ‘Enemies’.  A very appropriate song to bleed to, I think.  The whole song I’m thinking about my finger though so I end up not getting into it at all.  But between ‘Enemies’ and our new song ‘Light Up Pt. 1′ I bring up to the crowd the fact that I cut my finger on my guitar somehow and then I suddenly I felt better.  Now I’m feeling like some cool punk historical moment type thing with blood everywhere.  It’s like Sid Vicious stuff!  Then we started into our new song ‘Light Up Pt. 1′ on a completely different plane then we ever had before, bleeding and singing!  We ended our set with ‘Coming Down’ which I reminded the crowd they used to play on 100.5 last year but then stopped for some reason not by any fault of them!  They all laughed with us and then sang the song that they used to sing with the radio right there with us live at Workplay Theatre.  Love You Live and bleeding.  To everyone that was there thank you for supporting the music!

Check out this interview with Tim >>

HOOPLA MUSIC MAGAZINE | Buzz Artist The Enemy Lovers Interview

So today I downloaded the high res version of our new music video for ‘Coming Down’.  It took almost 2 hrs!  When you see it you’ll understand why.  It’s beautiful and clear.  It looks ridiculous!  Steven and I plugged the laptop into my stereo, cranked the volume, and watched it 3-4 times in a row.  We’re all very happy with how it came out and are exceedingly impressed with the two guys and their team who organized the whole thing.  The video shoot was led by Robert Hill and Taylor Hide, two extremely talented dudes from Birmingham AL.  We’ll be posting more detailed credits as we make the finishing touches on the release.  The majority of the video was shot right here in Asheville NC.  Pictures of the day were taken by C.W. Newel and you can look through all of them here.  I posted my favorites below.

I would tell you more in depth details about the video (because I’ve probably watched it 10 times today!) but I don’t want to ruin the surprise for everyone that was not at the video shoot.  And for those of you crazy fans that came to the video shoot and jumped around with us in the live performance scenes, we want to Thank you.  As you will soon see you brought the energy to the camera and to The Enemy Lovers!

**UPCOMING EVENT>> We are planning a ticketed Music Video Premier where you can join us to preview the video before we release it.  We’re throwing a party in honor of everyone that was involved on the project.  We’ll have drinks, behind the scenes footage, stories of the day etc.  And you can be a part of this…MORE DETAILS COMING SOON!

Tim

I really had no idea who was playing in the super bowl this year!  My question was actually intended to find out what football teams were playing and when she answered with “The Who” I busted out laughing and told her that was the best answer I’ve ever heard.  And I already knew The Who was playing the super bowl!  That stuff I know, but I still don’t know what teams played or who won…

Anyways, Super Bowl Sunday is always a good excuse to drink beer and eat buffalo wings with good friends…and that’s enough for me.

The commercials probably weren’t great, again.

Did you ever see Field of Dreams?  I just watched it again recently and how amazing is that movie?!  I feel like it is a perfect example of our lives.  First off, we may not all hear voices although to a degree they usually try and hospitalize you for that but we all have something we want to do.  Something either we are doing, want to do, or forgot that we want to do it.  Either way it is there but it is very frightening to go after it.  Sometimes we get so used to continuing on day after day in a job that was never supposed to be a career just something to pay the bills until whatever it was you really wanted to do could pay the bills that now it is so routine our “Field of Dreams” gets long forgotten.  On the other hand sometimes we went after our “Field of Dreams” for so long but it never panned out and the misery of never truly doing what we really wanted to do forces us into a routine of just paying bills.  There is so many reasons to give up on your dreams or what you really want to do and take on the “make money to spend money” perspective.  I am also not just talking about sports or music or acting, I am talking about anything.  Dreams don’t have to be artsy or involve being famous.  I am talking about doing whatever makes you lay down at night and think, I love my life!

No doubt if you have tried or are trying or want to try and live your dreams, you will start with an amazing feeling of excitement mixed with “nothing will go wrong” and it will last for a while, but at some point the reality sets in.  I am not against the reality but it can be a huge buzz kill at some times.  In the movie after he follows the voice or his metaphoric dream he lives for a while in the excitement of the new and then nothing happens.  To me this was such a true part of the movie for me.  I have tried time and again to live out my dream and after the excitement wears off and it feels like it is going nowhere, give up.  It seems a lot of the time I have given up.  Not necessarily because it was too hard, maybe more of the reason was because I thought it was not panning out.  I thought it was the door shutting in my face.  Maybe some of the time it was but everything is a chain reaction.  Most of the time living out your dream is birthed out of what seems mundane and boring and sometimes just normal.  It is all a road to get you to the point where your dreams are becoming a reality.

I don’t want to give away the movie if you haven’t seen it but go watch it, especially if you desire to live out your dreams and are in need of inspiration. There are always storms, there are always times of misunderstanding but don’t quit.  Don’t give up.  Most likely you are right on the verge of what you have wanted for a long time.

At least that is how it has been for me…

steven.

We have now completed all 5 days and have no recordings to show for it!  Who would have guessed that the first time we heavily advertise our recording experience and invited you all to join us it would end in complete disarray.  Even the first and only song we worked on while in the studio for a day and a half became the theme song for the whole experience.  (You can hear a preview of that rough demo in a video on our home page called “Falling Skies – The Drive DAY 1 of 5″.  We filmed this on the way to Atlanta with no idea of what was about to happen!)  Nothing went as planned this week but something has begun.  We saw the end of some things but also feel something just beginning.  It feels like The Enemy Lovers (as in just Steven and I) is no more and The Enemy Lovers (as in the whole band) has emerged out of this disaster.  We went into the studio in Atlanta as Tim and Steven recording music with Dan Hannon for The Enemy Lovers to us coming home to a band made up of more than just two brothers.  Although we have been playing live as The Enemy Lovers for almost a year now it has always been vague as to who we were.  A band or just two brothers?  We’ve not known what plans to make or not make trying to find our way through a music industry of mines.  We have tried to stay “flexible” in hopes of I don’t know what.  But a band had developed over this past year and now we see that we didn’t see it until the abrupt end in our professional relationship with our producer.  When we lost that safety net we began to see what had been developing here the whole time.  It’s our house now.  The Enemy Lovers house!  This is the band.  We make music.  We are now recording new demos and meeting with new producers.  Much is to come of this dreadfully beautiful week!

Thanks for coming with us.  Welcome to our house.

*FULL BAND BIO COMING SOON. Also look for blogs from every member of The Enemy Lovers.  Follow each of us on twitter.

**We have a NEW MUSIC VIDEO coming out very soon for ‘Coming Down’!  (I just saw the first edit and it is shocking how cool it looks.)  Look for more info on that premier.