May, 2003

After finishing 451 and July Songs, September 11 happened. A few days before September 11 I broke up with a girlfriend I had been dating for about three and a half years. It was a "mutual" breakup, although I had been wanting the relationship to end for at least three or four months. A lot of the pain of that initial need to change was written in the sub layers of 451. Anyway, after 9/11, I began working on new material and it all oozed of personal strife. Immediately following 9/11 and the breakup I wrote material that was all over the place stylistically speaking including work on a still-yet-to-be-finished covers record. It all changed the day I sat down and wrote "Everything's Fine in Kalamazoo." It was a strange moment because I knew with that song that the style and sound of the record had been defined. Folk-rock-pop. I stuck to it. I ended up taking "Lovedune," the one song I had written before "Everything's Fine in Kalamazoo," and reworking it slightly to fit with the sound. I kept writing.

At the time, what was different about Bad Luck, though, was the sheer amount of material that was written for the record. Because of mass-national loneliness my ex and I decided to attempt to fix the relationship and the concept of going for another cruise on a sinking vessel really inspired me. I wrote quite a few songs during that time including "Basically Trying," "Watch the Lovers Dance," "Be Prepared for Anything," and "The Rise and the Fall of the Audience." I also wrote this really goofy tune called "Vampire Seeking Female" and promptly put it on the "not useable" list. Most importantly I wrote a song entitled "Bad Luck" and decided that whatever record it ended up being, that should be the title. By the time I alone made the call to end the relationship and see other people, I had amassed a good 30-35 songs wandering all over the map lyrically and musically, but they all basically fit into the folk-pop-rock sound. I actually made a 2-disc set called The Bad Luck Demos where I titled one disc Bad Luck and Worst Luck where the latter included the songs that probably wouldn't end up on the record. This included "Vampire Seeking Female" and "Be Prepared for Anything," which both ended up on the record.

The recording process was difficult and chaotic. Vince Perri was producing/engineering for the first time and he and I were a bit inexperienced with Digital Performer to say the least. I was pretty testy for most of the sessions yet we had a ball. By the point we were recording a decent amount of the record, I began dating a friend from high school named Amanda who is now, in 2007, my wife. I was very excited to be with her and yet I had this nasty, grimy record I needed to expunge from my system, so the record almost has a positive vibe throughout despite the rage and sadness on some of the songs. The recording aspect of the record was finished in August of 2002, although the record didn't see release until May of 2003 due to mixing problems. By that time I was used to the Bad Luck-style output and the material from the record was tired and almost boring to me, but I still made a decent amount of cash to pay off expenses and now that it's all said and done it was fun and I wouldn't change any aspect of it.

This is the record that I usually look to as the beginning of the true Vasas-solo phase of my songwriting vocation, the point at which I started to be in the same ballpark for musical intention and musical expression. In retrospect, I've grown tired of the confessional style I was using on the record, but I also feel like it fits and some songs will bring back fond memories always. Anyway, now that I've written a stinking book here...