1. As I Make My Way
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This song is about the vision I had all my life of becoming a professional musician and just going for it. I’d been in and around the music industry much of my life, but had put my own musical dreams on the back burner. One day I was deep in thought and said to myself: “Some day I will die. And when that day comes I don’t want to look back on my life and kick myself for not doing what deep down inside I’ve always wanted to do.” So the song is about that moment, and going for it, and not worrying too much about outcomes — about giving it your all and just trusting that things will work out as they are supposed to.
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Ironically, even though this was the obvious first single, in the studio, this was one of the last songs to come together. It was lagging a bit behind the other songs and I wasn’t sure if it would even make the album. Then one day I said to Uri — let’s take a cue from the song itself and lay down some cool parts, starting with a great intro, without caring too much about how it turns out. Just let it go. So then I came up with the two guitar parts you hear in the intro and put them down, and Uri was messing around with a keyboard and came up with the really killer synth riff, as well as the scratchy sound at the beginning. Felt a lot like magic.
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2. Lines On Your Hands
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I wrote a bunch of songs before this, but this is the first track I wrote that’s on this album, so it means a lot. I used to play this song at open mics and always got a good response. This was also the song that my friends used to hear and tell me that there was potential. The final version sounds a lot like the demo that I had done in my apartment before I started working on the album with Uri — although obviously much better now.
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One of the most fun parts about making this song was towards the end — I just told Ben and Lorne (who played drums on the album) to just go for it and when I was laying down the guitars had a lot of fun just blasting out the solo.
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3. Rescue
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This is a really special song — I wrote it about a really difficult time in my life and someone close to me who helped me through that time. But the help came on so many different levels and this person still doesn’t realize how in so many ways that help was crucial. This is another song that sounds a lot like the demo I did years ago, although again much much better.
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This is another song that people gravitate to as one of their favorite so it’ll probably be the second single but want to see what the fans think first!
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4. Hope To Be
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This song is about my brother Farhan. He’s two years younger than me, so we grew up very close, and he’s one of the smartest people I know (I mean really brilliant — went to MIT, had a perfect GPA) and also someone who more than anyone else I know takes everything in stride. When he was in New York after school working and applying to grad schools in Economics, he got into awesome schools out west (Berkeley and Stanford) but he wanted to stay on the east coast but didn’t get into the schools he was aiming for, and even his professors were a little surprised by that.
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He decided to Berkeley, which was awesome, but I could tell he was a little bummed though he wasn’t one to mope or tell others about it. So I wrote this song before he left as my way of saying to him — ‘Go west bro. You’re the freaking smartest, strongest, most selfless guy I know and in so many ways I wish I were more like you. And I know that only good things are going to come of this, so go west.’
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Then a few years into his PhD he applied for his dream job with the Oakland Athletics — he was always a baseball fanatic — and got it. He’s been at the A’s for over 7 years now and is the Director of Baseball Operations working for Billy Beane. — i.e. very similar to the role that Jonah Hill had in “Moneyball.”
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5. Take a Step Back
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Although I’m primarily a guitarist I love playing the piano. Feels so pure, meditative and naked. This is the first song I ever wrote on the piano (I write most of them while playing an acoustic guitar.) We recorded the piano for this song as well as “You’ll Stay Right Here” at a different studio (LoFish) because they have a gorgeous grand piano that I loved playing.
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6. Great Escape
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A lot of people tell me this is their favorite song on the album. We put a lot of time and love into this one. Kept adding layers of guitars, pads, pianos, etc. — if you listen closely there’s a lot going on. I also need to give props to my vocal coach Adrian Holtz for the way this came out. The melody in the chorus was originally several notes lower. But when he heard it he said that I should really try it higher and re-write the chorus. So I did and it sounds a lot more soaring.
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7. Kneeling
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I wrote this song about Jerusalem, during a peaceful period in its history when its inhabitants of all different religions got along (Jews, Muslims, Christians). They respected and celebrated one another’s religious festivals and holidays, and lived without conflict. Jerusalem has had a lot of strife throughout the centuries but its history has been punctuated by the occasional period like this. The song is called “Kneeling” because it’s about my hope, prayer, and strong belief that that day can and will come again.
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When we were working on the track, I kept telling Uri that “the intro to this song needs to sound like the path from Jerusalem to heaven.” If you listen closely to the beginning (especially with loud speakers) you can hear a lot of rich layers — we spent a lot of time on it!
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8. We Are Breathing
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If there’s anything I want people to take away from this album other than than the message in “As I Make My Way” it’s the one carried in this song. This song is sung from the perspective of somebody or some being or some Being looking at the world and seeing all the conflict and strife and saying that’s absurd — because from that distance and from that vantage point everyone looks the same and is the same. I think we’d all be much better off as a race if we spent more time focusing on what we have in common as opposed to the things that set us apart.
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One of my favorite parts of this song is the riff in the beginning — which came to me years ago and then it felt absolutely perfect for this song when I wrote it. I knew I was onto something here when I was at an open mic performing this and a couple of rappers who were also there approached me and said they thought it would make a killer track.
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9. Fallen From Grace
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This is a song that a lot of people gravitate to as their favorite on the album — which is interesting to me, because it’s one of the last ones I wrote and didn’t think it was a big deal. It’s about several people who are very close to me who had really really tough childhoods and as a result turned to vices, bad habits, etc. to cope. It’s really me asking a theological question of sorts — is it really their fault? Something I struggle with.
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People also react well to this song live. I played the guitar solo on the album but Uri always does it live and it’s actually a lot better!
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10. Bombs Away
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Probably the most intense guitar track on the album. I pulled out so many guitars and layered so many parts. Uri kept making me do them over and over again until my hand literally couldn’t move
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This was also a lot of fun to produce. Uri wanted to take a “reamping” approach on this album — recording the guitar tracks into pro tools, and then later sending those signals out to amps, mic-ing them and recording the signals. Gives more flexibility, but it’s a lot more work. So we spent hours just getting the right tones. Hope people like the results!
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11. You’ll Stay Right Here
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This is the first song that ever came to me in a dream. I woke up in the middle of the night and the piano part was in my head, as were parts of the melody, and I just turned on the computer and banged it out. It just flowed. About someone close to me who went through a very hard time — so it was very intense. Felt like a great way to close the album.
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