#jay patton

The Ghosts of My Hometown: The Stories Behind the Sessions

I was playing one of my first gigs ever, living out in Colorado, back in probably 2003ish. It was some Irish bar in Ft. Collins. I want to say it was called Mulligan's or Conor O'Neills, but I'm not exactly sure. Anyways, I remember the booker (a redhead of course) saying that my playing was very tasteful. That was very nice of him. In the beginning it's the little things that help so much.

The bar was pretty dead that night, I wouldn't play Crash Into Me so the college girls were at a different bar, probably the same bar where they play Wagon Wheel now. Anyhooters, I played this new song Ghosts of My Hometown, and after I finished these two guys walked up to me, told me how much that song made sense to them, and stuck with them. They said it was exactly the same topic the two of them were talking about when they walked in. It blew my mind because I truly thought people weren't listening at all. No one had ever said something like that before, and it helped me continue on this musical adventure that's been full of higher highs and even lower lows.

I was asking Jay Patton (guitar builder/album producer) if there were any of my old songs that I should bring out for the License Plate Sessions. He mentioned Ghosts of My Hometown. He said it always stuck with him. Now, he may have been talking about the guitar riff, but it brought me right back to that night at Mulligan's/Kennedy's/Leprechaun Alley? in Colorado.

License Plate Sessions is now available everywhere! 

Samson: The Stories Behind the Sessions

The story of Samson and Delilah popped into my head one day from randomly seeing the title of an old blues song by Reverend Gary Davis in a guitar magazine. I didn't actually listen to his song until after I had recorded my song for this album.

I asked a few people who are a little more church-y than me about the details of Samson's story. It turns out that like many things in the Bible every religion varies on all of the details. I approached writing this song the same way a blues or folk artist would. I wouldn't say I stretched the story, but I put myself in Samson's shoes a little. I thought it would sort of be how Superman would feel if he lost his powers. He probably wouldn't go into work anymore. He'd be sitting at the bar bitter about how much it sucks to not be a superhero. Being regular is hard, especially if you were born able to pick up cars and shit. Maybe this happened on an episode of Lois and Clarke that I missed.

You may remember this song from my old album Headlight Sonata. That album and this video were both recorded when I was living in Chicago. This was shot at a spooky cemetery by our old apartment.

Cemetery Blues - Headlight Sonata Version

I thought it would be fun to give it a dubstep remix....not really, but it was cool to find a new way to interpret this song. I got to change the key, hit the guitar more, and deconstruct the song's sound from a gypsy vibe to well, whatever this new vibe is. I'll take your suggestions as to what it sounds like.