Enemy Among Us

The Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Absence*

Every morning, I'd wake to the sound of JT and Andy walking through the front door of my rented, hundred-year-old house on Grantland Avenue in Nashville. Jumping out of bed as quickly as possible, I'd greet them, wiping the sleep from my eyes, pretending to have been awake for hours. Their creativity seems to get them out of bed in the morning, whereas mine tends to keep me from getting into bed at night! After some coffee in the morning, courtesy of Gavin, we'd dive into recording, waking any unsuspecting, sleeping roommates in the process. We borrowed microphones and instruments from friends around town, creating a laundry list of favors which we still have yet to return. In between working day jobs and appeasing complaining neighbors, we wrote songs, d e c o n s t r u c t e d them, then reassembled them together in new ways. Nothing was sacred.

The Grantland house, itself, is very inspiring and when we were given the opportunity to record in "real" studios a few months later, we politely declined, knowing that no studio could ever replicate what we had at that house. The importance environment played in the inspiration and creation of Absence cannot be overstated. During the course of recording, our house developed such a reputation around town that other bands and artists began to use our house as well. Grantland quickly became somewhat of an artistic hub, with music coming out of all rooms, paintings and drawings hung on every wall, and people writing lyrics on the porch or in the backyard. On any given night, there could be a house show, an art exhibition, or a film crew using the house as a set. Ideas seem to be in the walls, in the wood floors and on the porch of this old house. With a little luck and attentiveness, we'd tap into that creative energy and capture it. With the few microphones we had, we recorded as much as possible, including one time when we sent JT outside during a rain storm to record vocals (which we do not recommend)!

Not surprisingly, recording at the Grantland house was beginning to take a toll on our neighbors, so we decided it would be best to take all of our gear to a remote location to finish the album. We stumbled upon a large house in Nunnelly, TN-about an hour west of Nashville. I don't think it is on the map, actually. Nunnelly is a tiny town and the house we found had no cell phone service or internet access-the perfect environment to focus on the task we set before ourselves.

We had a difficult time picking an album title that tied everything together, but the title Absence seemed to fit best. Whether it be a vacant lover, the loss of a family member, or wrestling with God, we felt like this was really an album full of internal examination and questioning. Since then, we've slowly learned some answers, but with more answers come new questions, and with new questions, hopefully, comes new music.

So when you hear Absence, you are hearing Andy, Gavin, JT and myself coming together, figuring out how to make an album for the first time. You are hearing drums in the living room…guitars in a bathroom, and vocals in the bedroom. We made this album ourselves. I recorded it and mixed it in my bedroom while JT did the album artwork. We trust that despite the imperfections, and maybe because of the imperfections and flaws, you hear the four of us trying to best capture something internal and convert it to something external. This album is for those that stumble upon it and claim it as their own, just as we have.

-Chad

10.07.09