Bravo Max are a 70's rock influenced indie band from Dallas that just released a new album Bullfighter Blues and to celebrate we asked them to tell us about the song "Clean Slate". Here is the story:
Johnny Beauford here, I play bass and sing in the band Bravo Max. Thank you so much for taking the time and interest in our new record. We all appreciate it greatly.
Clean Slate is the first song on the new Bravo Max album and it was one of the last songs we wrote as a band before going into the studio. I believe up to 2 weeks before we headed to Echo Lab to track the Bullfighter Blues album we were rehearsing and still hammering out the final pieces of "Clean Slate." Little did we know it would become such a prominent track on this release. It started with a killer riff Garrett had written on guitar - then I believe we added the juxtaposition of the intro and centered it around our drummer, Jonathan Jackson's idea to play in a different time signature from the top until the first verse comes in.
In writing this, it sounds a little complex as a foundation for a song but like a few of our songs on Bullfighteronce we had the separate parts completed (intro, bridge, extended verse, horns parts, etc.) and set in stone we were able to really stitch them together so that they are as seamless as possible.
Even the lyrics for "Clean Slate" were very fresh going into recording this one. I remember singing them off the cuff straight from a book of lyrics I had on hand. I love hearing the vulnerability and spontaneous results of doing things on the fly in the studio here and there. It really is an audible difference to hear someone playing something they just wrote as opposed to something that is a year or two old and has grown a bit more commonplace for them to perform their parts.
"Clean Slate" could easily have been the title for this album especially considering the band's dramatic change in sound from the first full length to this Sophomore effort. The lyrics are mostly straightforward in talking about a re- birth and a fresh start artistically.
We hope you'll check it out for yourself. We have released both a new music video and a live radio performance for this track in the past month, so it's all as Clean and fresh as you can imagine still.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself as you check out the video here and learn more about the album (and stream it!) right here!
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