Under the House (Paisley Pop 2003)

Ah, the comeback record. Not that anyone really noticed me missing.

After relocating to Knoxville around the turn of the century, I eventually got back into playing music after a lengthy layoff. Shortly after moving here, I met John Baker and Jim Rivers from a local band called the French Broads, who had been on an overseas compilation on which I also had a track.

We played a coupla gigs together and Jim invited me over to check out his home studio setup. On that initial visit, Jim and John and I had a few beers, then started talking about recording. They asked if I had any songs and we recorded “Laura” that evening. From there, we met pretty much every Thursday night and worked on a new song until we had what we felt constituted a full record.

Under the House is largely acoustic in nature, due mainly to the low-key approach we took. John played a lot of the drums, or we’d call in others as needed. We took turns playing bass, guitar and other instruments. The casual nature of the sessions made it a lot of fun, and Jim and John’s natural chemistry made it easy to get things done with little bogging down.

My favorite song on here is “Skating Rink.”

Track Listing:

  1. Keep it True
  2. Skating Rink
  3. Without Action
  4. Everywhere but Here
  5. Another Day
  6. Any Part of This
  7. Anymore
  8. Highway 49
  9. Laura
  10. All That Much

Recorded by Jim Rivers at Kat P, Knoxville, Tenn.

Produced by Jim Rivers, John Baker and Tim Lee

Under the House is still available from Paisley Pop Records (www.paisleypop.com).