A Diverging River
It's been a minute. But it's been a good minute.
The last time I blogged, we were on the verge of releasing "Knives Among the Orchids"... well, as you may know, we decided to shelve it. It was a funny situation that led to the decision.
"Knives Among the Orchids" - at its conception - was intented to be an aggressive turn in direction... shooting away from the California vibe that we have loved so dearly in the past and heading into darker territory... and we loved it. We really did. But there was just one problem. Two problems, actually.
The first problem was a song called "Someone to Break My Heart" and the other was "Creating Mr. Wonderful".
You see, while we were indulging in our hard rock fancy, a couple songs just popped into my head one day. And I mean popped. Songwriting is a funny thing, but sometimes songs just pour out of you... and they tend to be the best ones. Well, these two beachy jams were instantly there and we said "whoa, these are great but they sound like an entirely different album". I even came up with a name for that imaginary, beachy album: "The Waves Within".
Initially, the idea was to release "Knives Among the Orchids" and follow it up with a chill beach record called "The Waves Within"... but, as the release date for "Knives" crept ever closer, we found ourselves collaborating on new songs that really seemed to fit with "The Waves Within"... songs like "Wait Forever" and "Nightmare" were among the first... and, honestly, we just thought they were better songs.
The nail in the coffin came when we passed our record along to our good friend Don Grierson. Don is a legend in the world of A&R. Seriously, just look him up. Because he has been responsible for so much of the music that we know and love. I won't get into his resume here, but he is amazing... and a wonderful friend.
We shared "Knives Among the Orchids" with him and we shared the acoustic demos we had from "The Waves Within". From 'Knives', he liked our song "Writing on the Wall", which was the sole single from the album we released. But he preferred the songs we had written for "The Waves Within"... and that really did it for us. We trust Don's judgment always.
I suppose there was one other reason we decided to go with the "Waves Within" material... as I described earlier, "Knives" would have been a strong change in direction... whereas "The Waves Within" felt natural, like a better version of the same Polaris Rose concept that was present on "Ocean Blue, Velvet Skies" and "Telescopes"... yeah, we just felt like it was the right next step. It made sense.
We have no idea if we'll ever release "Knives Among the Orchids". Maybe if people want to hear it. But, looking back, Maddie and I both feel like it's a record we needed to make but it's not really Polaris Rose. It was an evil twin. A bizarro-world version of what we do. But we still love it and value what it meant in our lives. But we're even more thrilled with "The Waves Within"- how it sounds and what it means for us moving forward.
