Going Track By Track with John Batdorf

GOING TRACK BY TRACK on Old Man Dreamin' with John Batdorf

Written by Joe Viglione

Friday, 28 August 2009 22:18

John Batdorf's Old Man Dreamin' album gets the Track By Track treatment as Joe Viglione asks John about the creation of this music. Click onto the CD cover to find John Batdorf, Batdorf & Rodney, Batdorf & McLean CDs on http://www.gemm.com Check out the video to "Will I Love You Forever" linked below. 1)Why did you decide to record the songs on Old Man Dreamin? John Batdorf: Old Man Dreamin’ is kind of a tongue in cheek autobiography about my career which really sets up the CD. There are some very clever and funny lines in between the serious hook, “My dreams are bittersweet ‘cos I’m an Old Man Dreamin’ in a Young Mans’ World” which is how I feel at times as I plod ahead in the music business some forty years now. I love the verse, “Through the years I made some fans, Then I struck gold with the Silver band...Wham Bam”, which refers to the big hit Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang I had in 1976 with the band Silver. The following line,”Four decades later and, that one big hit I still can’t stand” is true! Clive Davis made us do that song or we didn’t get to make an album! 2)Were all these songs recorded and mixed at the same studio? John Batdorf: All of the songs on this CD were recorded in my studio. The great thing about recording today, other than not having a record company own and control your stuff, is the fact that you can record with guys all over the world exchanging files via the internet. Harry Stinson was the drummer and one of the singers in the band Silver. He lives in Nashville and has had a very successful career. I asked him if he would sing with me on a song or two and got him to sing on “I Fall To Pieces” which he did splendidly as I knew he would. Many of the players on this CD recorded like this. It’s really great fun and sometimes quite surprising to hear what others are inspired to play or sing when not under the pressure of having to do it quickly like the old days! 3)Did the inspiration for this work come all at once, during a fixed period in time, or was it spread out over many years...or longer? John Batdorf: The inspiration came suddenly for many of the songs like, “That Don’t Seem Right To Me” for instance. I set aside June and July of 2008 to just write songs. Right before I started my wife and I went on a fishing trip in Northern California unfortunately at the height of the gas price ordeal. Unfortunately we were low on gas and the little town of Lee Vining was our last hope. I pulled up to the gas pump and to my surprise, gas was a whopping 4.99 per gallon. All I could think of after all of the swearing was, That Don’t Seem Right To Me! This experience inspired the first verse, “Work two jobs just to buy gas to get to one, Takes three cars just to guarantee that one will run”, and on and on it went. My song writing partner, Michael McLean and I had fun thinking of things that didn’t seem right and this song was born! 9 of the 11 songs were written in those two months and the last, “Ain’t No Way” was written in December as Bush was getting ready to leave office. 4)Are all the tracks by the same musicians and, if so, how long has this particular group been together? John Batdorf: I usually use the same guys on my projects but this time I really wanted to reach out to some new people that I hadn’t ever worked with on a record before. On “What D’ Ya Got” for instance, I used Luke Halpin on mandolin and Kevin Dukes on the electric guitar and Gary Falcone on background vocals. I wanted to keep the songs fresh sounding and only used each person excluding the drummer Tom Walsh on about three songs each. All the players brought something special to the project and I thank them all for their incredible contributions. 5)Who are all the songwriters on this album? John Batdorf: Michael McLean and myself wrote all the songs from June to December. We have been writing songs together off and on for almost twenty years. This batch may be our best yet which is always what you strive for. The reviews have been phenomenal so far. We had eleven songs written by the end of July but two of the songs weren’t holding up to the other nine. I always hate giving up songs but clearly two better songs needed to be written. I started recording the album and one day started playing a riff in a new tuning and got inspired. I wrote, “Don’t Tell Me Goodbye” and is clearly one of my favorite cuts on the CD wit some stellar BGs by George Merrill and pedal steel by Greg Leisz. 6)Any anecdotes about live performances of this song? John Batdorf: Other than struggling in the beginning to learn all of the lyrics, all the songs but one translate beautifully live. I built the CD around acoustic guitar and voice and always made sure they led the train. “Sixteen” is one of those studio songs that I never planned or meant to do live for many reasons. The song was inspired by a TV special about Fundamentalists that somehow have gotten themselves in a position to have multiple wives at his choosing. Many of the woman are young girls in their early teens and have no choice in the matter. If he wants them, he gets them using religion to hide behind. I got so upset by the segment I got up and wrote the chorus,”Sixteen’s all I wanna be, not a wife not a mother to be, How can he take me in the name of the lord. Says he knows what’s best for me, but all I see is misery, Dirty Secrets, Dirty Lies”. The chorus was written from the young girls’ perspective and the verses had to set that up and they do just that. I won’t play it live because of the subject matter and it was all built on me tuning my guitar to an open chord and pounding and muting the strings to create a dark musical bed. 7)Was there anything out of the ordinary while recording a video of one or more songs from this album? And if not, how did the director of the video work with the original storyline? To your satisfaction? John Batdorf: I had never shot a music video before. Most guys that are 57 years old don’t get that many calls for that! My co-songwriter, Michael McLean produced and directed commercials and films for years in the 80s and 90s and suggested we try and get some videos made for the CD. we got a really sweet deal and set out to shoot some music videos. The setting was in the mountains of Malibu and I loved doing the song, “Will I Love You Forever”. It’s the only song I recorded and wrote on the piano. We dragged a piano out on a deck which overlooked the beautiful mountains with the sun hitting them as it was setting. The song is a melancholy look at a couple who are committed to each other for life but struggle at times to find the strength to continue on thus the chorus, “Will I Love You Forever? It’s a promise I made and will not be betrayed, though I’ll love you forever, It’s so hard today”. The videos were shot in Hi-Def by Miguel Siqueiros. The first line of the song is, ”We were the story and audience loves, Violins played when we kissed, we fit the casting of love everlasting so how has it come down to this”. The opening of the video looks like a count in to a movie with a projector sound and the video looks like an old movie. It was great fun! You can check it out on the link below. WILL I LOVE YOU FOREVER http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcKYT4_YXCs&feature=channel_page 8)Was this song effectively captured in the studio or would you change something in the future or on stage? John Batdorf: Because of having my own studio, I don’t release anything until it’s right. One of the songs, “I Thought I’d Try A Love Song” was written many times over a few months and almost got tossed out. It always felt like it was trying to hard until Michael McLean came up with this brilliantly hilarious song concept. This song is set up to be about a guy who is way more interested in the girl he met and dated for a while than she is of him but he just can’t take the hint. He figures he’d write her a love song and that would make everything just work out perfectly which really never happens. It actually is a song within a song. The verses are about his struggle to get the girl and the chorus is him singing her his hot love song. It has a very funny ending and I am so glad that we didn’t give up on this song! 9)How difficult was it getting this composition from your mind to the recording session and onto the disc? John Batdorf: “Ain’t No Way” was the last song written for the CD and it wasn’t hard to write at all. This song was written around the time Bush was getting ready to leave office. The country was left in such a mess and The President didn’t seem compelled to say much about it. I know it’s a tough gig and I wouldn’t want it but I thought he owed the country an apology that never came. The chorus goes, “That ain’t no way to say you’re sorry, Don’t blame the fools that you misled, At least pretend to see way I’m so angry, With my eyes wide open, I been buried left for dead”. This song really gets the crowd fired up at my shows. 10)Did you attend the mastering session and how important was the mastering to the overall sound of the album? John Batdorf: I have to be at the mastering session. Every producer does. Mastering is the last thing to be done to the project that artists/producers spend months and sometimes years creating. Even a simply produced song like,”Love: All I Really Know About It” can be made better or ruined in mastering. A song as simple as this needs room to breathe and the wrong EQ or too much compression can make it sound harsh to the listener. I always master with Ron McMaster at Capitol Records studio in Hollywood. It’s worth the money! 11)Pick any one, two or three songs to essay about, giving the reader more perspective on what you wanted to say... lyrically, musically or both. John Batdorf: “I Will Rise This song came to me in a dead sleep during an afternoon nap. I woke up in a start and all the lyrics, melody, and chords were clearly formed in my mind. The subject matter was a reflection of my life and marriage to my wife, Melanie. It was so powerful that I was afraid to go back to sleep, so I jumped up and recorded it immediately in fear that this was maybe the last song I would ever write. I later asked Michael to help me with some of the problem areas that needed more clarity, and this is what we came up with. Most of the original lyrics that came to me in that moment are still in the song. It was truly one of the more powerful moments I have ever experienced as a songwriter.

Last Updated on Friday, 28 August 2009 22:33