Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees
“I guess it's just who we are. Hey, we're warm people,” Bret jokes with a laugh, and though the ease and deep friendship these three share speaks for itself, the overall grungy-summery sound was actually the overall endgame. Robert credits producer Dave Trumfio for bringing “beautiful, layered, lush, warm tones in combination with what we came up with ourselves.
Despite what you’ll read online, the band confirmed that they were never initially called Small Fecal Matter, nor were they ever called BFS, said to have stood for either Big Fucking Shit or Big Fucking Sound. What is true, is that Bret replaced singer-guitarist Gregg Miller in 1994. Also true, Robert plucked “Dogstar” out of Henry Miller’s– as with most of Miller’s writings, lust is an unabashed theme.
“It’s that same energy, for sure,” Bret agrees. “It's that same energy that you have when you're a kid…when you're starting out and you're doing it for all the right reasons. You don't care if your ears are ringing at the end of the day because you're in too small of a space, your amp is too loud, or whatever it is. All that not caring, that's what makes a good record, I think. That's what makes a cohesion between the band members, too.
From their initial jam sessions up to the actual recording, they’ve managed to preserve that authentically stripped-down “pro garage band” sound on. In a world of filters and special effects, they’ve chosen a more honest, old-school route. “Hit songs” are amongst the many words they never mention. “Chart success,” “singles,” and “algorithm” are a few notable others that never come up.
Bret recalls the Eastern-influenced break came out of one of their jam sessions. Keanu looks at his “hieroglyphics” treatise to recount the process, like an ancient scholar: “We have here…we go to Rob's house, there's a verse, and then we go, a disco funk, all-star jam. Then I crossed out “funk,” and then it went to the High A, and then we have the Indian [break] put in there.