(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Jace Everett tells us about the opening track of his new album, Red Revelations:"Possession" (Jace Everett/Chuck Prophet) When I asked Chuck Prophet in September 2008 if he might want to write and produce on my new record we started shooting mp3's back and forth. Chuck is in San Francisco and I'm in Nashville so it was sloppy tape swap time!
Certainly, that got the juices flowing, but I decided to go out west and sit in a room with the man to see what we would find. I had some finished songs already and a few ideas to bring in to Chuck.
We wrote 5 songs in as many days and I believe "Possession" was day 4. Between the two of us there's enough testosterone and general crankiness to bring on Armageddon, but we really hit a rhythm and this was possibly the most quickly written tune on the record. To be fair, Prophet had really developed the idea pretty far along on his own, with one of the coolest work tapes of all time. He had this chord movement he was obsessed with and the title to go with it. It was initially kind of homage to one of our mutual heroes, Link Wray.
Although it sounds like a dark tune there are exactly zero minor chords in the thing! But the whole step movements (E D C) give it this heavy feel. There was never any question about the guitar tones. Tremoelos, Bigsbys, and Fender amps; add volume.
I did a version myself with a different bass line and some melody tweaks. Chuck loved the bass line and I'm glad it stuck.
The lyric was something we battled out in his cramped little room above a studio in San Francisco. It's a man possessed with being possessed by the long, cool woman in the black dress kinda thing. Throw in some creepy lines; "the earth is rushing through my veins / moonlight on the window pane / lovers crawl across the floor / children waiting to be born" and you've got a love song for people who HATE love songs.
When we recorded it, Brad Jones (another producer on the record and a damn fine engineer/musician) had the idea to put a great big acoustic piano playing this 1950's triplet figure. Juxtaposed with the two heavy guitars (Chuck and Dan Cohen) Chris Raspante developed a mild case of carpal tunnel pounding the keys for hours that day.
The reason I put "Possession" as the first track on the new album is simple; it just felt right. I like a rather dramatic intro for an album and I felt the creepy atmosphere of the recording served "Red Revelations" really well. It's not my favorite song on the album (although I love it), but I think it's the perfect lead track.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album - right here!
