SKY 9 Looks back at life's lost and found in new release "Museum" CDB - Tell me about the new album "Museum". SKY 9 - "Museum" is a true concept album. Just me reflecting on life in high school with friends and loves. And some of the songs were actually written in high school. CDB - You say "true" concept album. What do you mean by that? SKY 9 - Well, first of all, most of the songs are true in that they actually happened. There's a little exaggeration here and there in some of the songs but for the most part it all happened. On a different level it's a true concept album in that there is a theme that ties all the songs together - life and love in high school. The last record (ed. note "Violet Fair," 2008) felt much more like one because of the way the songs weaved in and out of each other but there was no real concept at all. While I made a decision not to segue songs this time around, there is actually a story. CDB - Let's get into it track by track. It starts off with "In My Town". SKY 9 - Yeah. It sets the stage. If you were to sum it up it would be sex, drugs, and rock and roll which is all we cared about in high school. But we didn't go to extremes too much. That would have been gross and unhealthy, not to mention boring. The last thing you wanted to be was bored. We were all responsible teens with jobs and cars but all of that was a big part of life and that's why I wrote about it. CDB - I love the harmonies. SKY 9 - Thank you. It takes a while to do them when you can't sing. I like the bass a lot too. That was a Rickenbacker 4003 I got while I was making this album and I think I use it on most of the songs. CDB - What about track 2 "I'll Be Gone"? Prominent piano on that one. SKY 9 - That's a baby grand we used to have that came from Harrod's in London. I wrote this song in high school when I was breaking up with one girlfriend and moving on to the next one. It was tough because we were all close friends, or at least ran in the same circles. It's a bit amateur but I didn't know about songwriting at the time. And that's just me rocking it up a bit at the end on guitar. CDB - I love the guitars on the next track "Note For Note". SKY 9 - I had been listening a lot to a record by Neil Young called "Tonight's The Night". I just love it and wanted to get that raw kind of sound. The sound of "we've-been-up-partying-all-night-and-decided-to-hit-play-and-record-on-the-tape-machine" sound. Like Velvet Underground or something. It ultimately didn't work for me because I'm a one-man band and have too much production tendencies. But the idea for the sound was at least pure. That's a Les Paul and a Stratocaster with slap back echo. The song itself is about connecting with my next girlfriend who was breaking up with her boyfriend who also happened to be my close friend. It was all very Fleetwood Mac for a time. Teenage love. (Laughs). CDB - The bass stands out on that one also. SKY 9 - I think that is the first song I recorded with the Rickenbacker. I was getting better as a bass player so all of these songs have really good bass lines. I do vocals because I have to and I hate it. My voice is horrible. But I do bass because I want to. I don't ever skimp when it comes to that. I'm very confident when it comes to playing bass and producing the type of music I produce. The rest I just struggle with. CDB - What's the song about. SKY 9 - It's about 3 and a half minutes. (Laughs). It's about the girl I was getting together with at the time. She was seeing my friend but managed to pass me a note in an assembly one day when he was sitting right between us. I thought that took some guts and I obviously liked her so that's how we got together. The middle part refers to sneaking into her house after I'd been out with my friends including her boyfriend. In the chronology the next song "Once Upon An Afternoon" would come before the middle part in this song but this is just how it worked out. That's part of the exaggeration I was talking about. It was all just crazed fun. CDB - "Once Upon An Afternoon" certainly paints a picture... SKY 9 - Again that's a word for word true song. I think the reason I have a fonder opinion of this album that of Violet Fair is because it's real. I wasn't really imagining anything. It is totally real. I picked her up one day, went to my house, went upstairs and were about to have at it for the first time with each other when my friend - her boyfriend - showed up with some of our other friends. My car was there and they knew I was home but didn't know about her and they wouldn't leave me alone knocking on the doors and throwing rocks at my window. I sneaked downstairs and made sure the doors were locked. It was tricky because we had a lot of windows so if they were in the front, I was in the back and vice versa. I love the guitar swells and the bass sound. The over all recording is a little too bright for me. CDB - "Wonderful Together" the next one. SKY 9 - Yeah. That one we are in the relationship full on. Like I said, I would sneak through her window at night. The 10:30 theme is Johnny Carson's Tonight Show... when it came on at 10:30. The song involves three things - Me, her, and The Tonight Show. I thought that would be interesting because that's how it was. She had Johnny on all the time. I like the guitar spread and the bass. I wrote that song on a Fender Jazzmaster plugged into two amplifiers. I kept that in the recording. I edited this one a little. Removed a chorus at the end to shorten it. CDB - "Two Year Love" is next. All these songs paint a picture. SKY 9 - I was just describing what went on. Wrote this on my Hofner bass. I like the spanish guitar. And the solo is interesting because the ear doesn't know which melodic line to follow - the muted guitar on the left or the 12 string guitar on the right. I like to do that trick sometimes. CDB - I do find that interesting when I listen to it. What can you tell me about "The Next Time". SKY 9 - Originally written in 9th grade with slightly different lyrics. For example the first line was " I saw you in a stage show behind my brightly colored eyes." and it just went from there. Hmm. I wonder why my eyes were brightly colored. (Laughs). I changed the lyrics to fit the situation a few years later. I like the fill guitars and the accent guitars. I think I wrote this song on bass also. It's a very early song for me. They lyrics are kind of clunky in parts but that's reality. CDB - "For Every Winner" is very descriptive. SKY 9 - Yes. That actually happened sitting with my friend in my 1969 Mach 1 Mustang in the parking lot behind the Howard Johnson's and the Maison D'Orleans. I told him that I was now seeing his girlfriend. So it's very true. He wasn't happy but there was nothing he could do. That was written at the time. The music was written a bit before that... maybe early in high school but the words were put to it a little later. I like the line "For every anthem, someone sings the blues". CDB - Next up is the piano ballad "All She Wrote". SKY 9 - We've jumped in time now. Our relationship has come to an end a couple of years later. It is also a literal song. I have the picture. I have the christmas card and I quote it in the song. That is the last I heard from her. Bitter sweet. The first drum fill was recorded much later. I accidentally recorded over the original few seconds and I patched it together many years later when technology allowed me to do it. It matched pretty well and I don't think you can tell at all. CDB - Another piano ballad follows it up. "Thank You". SKY 9 - I was just thanking my former girlfriend for ending the relationship. One doesn't normally do that. But it was best in this case. I was also imagining what her life is like today. Probably nothing like that but it made for a song. More infidelity and such. I like the slow fade at the end. This song is heavily edited also. I like it. I like the mandolin and 12 string guitar and the keyboard. I think the piano is an old upright. The bass is cool too. My voice on the other hand... not so much. CDB - And the album closer - "In The End". SKY 9 - If I were to re-do this album it would end with "All She Wrote". But people seemed to like "In The End" and it seemed appropriate to end on so I put it on. It was written during "Violet Fair" but didn't fit there. Most of these songs were demoed on 4-track and I prefer that version demo of this song. It's a little slower and has a different guitar pattern but this one is okay. The bass and the guitar solo are good. And This is the only song on the album I don't play drums on. It's my high school drummer friend again. He was in our circle but wasn't a direct character in the narrative of the story of these songs. Sort of always independent of what was happening. Maybe that's why we continued to make music together. CDB - How would you sum up "Museum"? SKY 9 - For me it's a personal album. a bit more mature than "Violet Fair". It has it's weak parts like for example the lyrics to "I'll Be Gone". But it also has it's strong points. The production and some of the chord progressions are very advanced for high school. It's a nice little listen. That's all. CDB - What's next for SKY 9? SKY 9 - I have another two album's worth of material and several singles. They are in various stages of completion and I LOVE them. "Violet Fair" and "Museum" were just a warm up. I know what I'm doing now and I can't wait to complete them and have them released. They will be a leap in songwriting and I'm excited about that.