When the band first got together, we didn't have a lot of original material. As individuals, we had material, but making that stuff work with the style and direction of the band was challenging. For instance, I had many songs of my own, but very few of them were going to work out based on the style of players in the group. Although I was obsessed with Progressive Rock at the time, Mike and Al were not. They were more interested in edgier groove music, and less interested in showing off technique. Andy seemed to have both sensibilities within himself.
The songs I had written on my own up to this point were not suited to anyone but myself, or of course, the commercially wretched "Guards of Zeus!" When I met with Andy, I played him some of the songs I had done with GoZ, but they were just pretty far out there.
So in the earliest days of The Awakening, we relied more on cover tunes and songs Andy had already worked out with Mike and Al. I began with earnest to write songs specifically for this group, and it proved quite a challenging affair, only because I had never really had to TRY before!
A few of the songs we first learned together were "The Distance," "Murder For Convenience" (a token anti-abortion song), "Lost Without You", and "Cheap Talk." These were all Andy songs, and many of them were left behind after 6 months or so. Cheap Talk was done before I was in the band, and had a spectacular amount of unnecessary 80's "shred guitar" solos... literally a solo after every chorus!! It was great, but remains lost in the 80's where it belongs!
Not that my ideas at the time were any better! Songs I was writing at this time included "Wait For The Lord," a cheesy Rhodes-styled ballad, and "The Ladder" an ultra-serious riff-laden Prog work-out!!
Mike and Al had their own songs on the list too. Mike in particular had already written a song that would become a staple of our career - "Fireside," thus establishing himself as the one with legitimate edge in the group. His lyrics were more introspective, poetic and generally about darker subject matter than the stuff Andy and I wrote. Andy tended to be really preachy in his early songs, which I think inspired me to do much the same. My early songs had something called the "J Factor" in them... as many repetitions of the name JESUS as possible. It's honestly very embarrassing to me now!!
Al Powell would go on to write lyrics for the band as well, including the songs "Two Worlds" and one that made it to our first indie LP "When The Crying Stops."
So with these fragments of new songs in hand, we began to play small gigs, usually coffee houses or local churches. The early gigs were a real rush for all of us, but for me, it was my first exposure to the world of Christian entertainment! This was long before it became annoying, and judgmentally pathetic (!!) These were the days when we as four guys really felt like we were on some kind of Blues Brothers inspired mission from Gad!
I have a recording from one of our earliest gigs. It was in a tiny little street ministry place in Hamilton Ontario. There couldn't have been more than 30-40 people there, but it was an energetic night to say the least. We played some of our originals, but relied on Larry Norman songs like "Why Don't You Look Into Jesus" to fill the night.
These were also the days of us pawning ourselves off as "TV Preachers!" It was then, and probably still is today, considered necessary that if you are a Christian and you play music about your faith, you must therefore stand up in front of an audience and explain yourself. This seemed like a natural thing at the time, but retrospect being what it is, I'm quite sure we were quite terrible at this task!! I had only been a Christian for less than a year by the time I was up on stage telling people all that I had learned about being a Christian (!!) Obviously a good chunk of what I would say on stage would be devoid of facts, but when you're young, skinny and good looking, and playing rock music, who cares about details?!!
I remember we used to play a song of mine called "Carnal Knowledge" (a real pick-me upper!). We were on stage somewhere, and I started preaching to the audience about how God will sometimes TEMPT you into sexual sin. As I was saying this, Andy's brother Steve was standing right in front of me down in the audience vehemently shaking his head in disapproval. I had no idea what his problem was until after the show when he told me that God does NOT Tempt people. God TESTS people. Big difference!! Oh well... what could you expect from someone who only a few years earlier stopped believing in Santa Claus?!! (just kidding!)
So as the years would go by, we would refine and improve our between-song banter, but honestly, looking back, the whole idea of trying to be some kind of role model just seems so insane. There were some tense moments on stage because of this area of our so-called ministry. We probably would have been better off to cease the preaching and just play the music, but it just wasn't the way things were done back then.
So we struggled onward and upward!
By the end of 1985, I was at University in London Ontario while Andy was in college in the same town. His course was a recording arts course, so he was able to use the recording facilities at the college, so for the first time in our careers, we were able to record on something other than a 4 track cassette recorder. Our first legit demo as a band came from this place.
One of my songs that made the cut, but never made it to an album was called "Waiting For The End." I will post this song at some point soon. It was an interesting song with challenging chord progressions, but by the time we had enough album material ready to go in 1986, this song and many like it, got left behind.
Our small-scale gigs continued throughout 85' and 86', but the focus of the band quickly turned to recording. Andy had a burning desire to record a full album and look for a record deal.
By the Spring/Summer of 1986, we were in a 16-track studio in Kitchener, Ontario recording what would become our first album together, an album called "Two Worlds" - released on glorious VINYL! (This was the only album we ever did that was mastered directly to vinyl.)
More on those days, coming up soon!
Thanks again for reading.
Ian - June 5/09
No comments:
Post a Comment