INFLUENCE

TRACK-BY-TRACK

Release date: 03/06/2007

"Summer Breeze” Listen

(Seals & Crofts, 1972)

Tommy Shaw: “There are lots of interesting textures on the original recording, and I did my best to bring them to life by muting my guitar strings to recreate percussion sounds and so on. It was like painting a picture with only primary colors, mixing our own shades as we went along.”

Jack Blades: “This was always a great chorus, and we started to sing it in perfect duet harmony. When we came around to the second verse, Tommy started singing that wonderful, different harmony and it just took it to a whole other level. The third verse, we broke it down and changed it around at the end. It was a freeing and satisfying experience, and the song really came to life with the Tommy and Jack detour that we do.”

“Time of the Season” Listen

(Zombies, 1968)

Jack Blades: “Tommy said he wanted to do this song, but then he said the vocals were too low for him, so I had to sing it. There are these triad, strange harmonies that create that in the song, and you never even think about it. It was just awesome to tear it apart and listen to it, because there were all these things we never realized about the song. We pulled aside the shades and peeked inside, and saw things that we’d taken for granted for so long. That’s just so satisfying.”

“Your Move” Listen

(Yes, 1971)

Tommy Shaw: “This is a combination of tipping our hat to the original, separating it from the second half of Yes’ version, and book-ending it with the original composition.”

Jack Blades: I was driving down the freeway in Marin County when this song came on, and I just knew we had to do it. I think it’s one of the best vocals Tommy’s ever sang in his career, and my son, Colin, sang background vocals with us. It’s Yes, but without the mass of synthesizers. It’s stripped down to the essence and brilliance of the song.”

“I Am a Rock” Listen

(Simon & Garfunkel, 1966)

Jack Blades: “Tommy had an idea to do this one almost like the Foo Fighters or the Goo Goo Dolls, and it was fun. We let ourselves take certain liberties with some songs, like this one, and then on others we tried to stay true to the original.”

Tommy Shaw: “We took this to a whole other level – I’m surprised no one has ever cut this in a heavier version, it was a natural.”

“Lucky Man” Listen

(Emerson, Lake & Palmer, 1970)

Tommy Shaw: “This is one we stayed the course on, remaking it as close to the original as possible. Since neither of us were good enough keyboard players to play the Keith Emerson MOOG solo, I dug out this old pedal I’d gotten from Digitech years before, but had never plugged in, a pedal that allowed you to do dive bombs up or down by manipulating the pedal and settings. This gave us the same kind of portamento solo energy as the original, but made it our own at the same time.”

Jack Blades: “I’ve always loved Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and I’ve always wanted to sing this song whenever it came on the radio. The huge choruses have always blown me away, and we layered them like 20 times with the two of us singing the different high and low parts. It was pure fun, like two kids in a candy store – I’m freaking out because I’m singing it, and he’s freaking out because he’s playing it!”

“Sounds of Silence” Listen

(Simon & Garfunkel, 1964)

Jack Blades: “The whole goal with this was just to pay homage to the song. The way you feel when you hear this song, you just want to bow down and genuflect. The song is that brilliant.”

“California Dreamin’” Listen

(Mamas and the Papas, 1963)

Jack Blades: “We wondered how we were going to sing this without two girls in the band, but Tommy did a great job on the vocals and on the solo. We took some liberties, but kept it traditional. This song is less than three minutes long, and it’s only that long because we added like 30 seconds to it – These songs that were so monumental were so quick, but they said everything that needed to be said. This song just takes me back to growing up in California in the late ‘60s.”

“On a Carousel” Listen

(Hollies, 1965)

Tommy Shaw: “This one almost suffered by us getting it more in tune than the original. All these songs were originally written long before the days of digital auto tuning, and the particular out-of-tune-ness of the Hollies vocals really defined their sound. In order to keep the vibe of the original, we were careful not to make it too perfect.”

“Dirty Work” Listen

(Steely Dan, 1972)

Jack Blades: “This has always been one of my favorite songs, and it’s the only Steely Dan song that Donald Fagen did not sing. This song has just always killed me.”

“For What It’s Worth” Listen

(Buffalo Springfield, 1967)

Tommy Shaw: “This is one of the first songs we recorded, an experiment to see how we sounded covering a classic. We got braver as we went along…”

Jack Blades: “This was written in 1967 about the riots on Sunset Boulevard during the war, and here we are now going through it again, it’s amazing.”

 

“Dance with Me” Listen

(Orleans, 1975)

Tommy Shaw: “Jack’s son, Colin, a very experimental songwriter himself, is always playing with different tunings, and he showed me this tuning that he said was a typical Johnny Rzeznik [Goo Goo Dolls] tuning. I tried it, and this song came to life like in a way I’d never heard it. I’d played this song in bars back before I joined Styx, but the original was sounding a little too sweet for us in that form. This tuning gave it some darkness, which set the lyrics in a more introspective tone. Jack’s bass, Randy Mitchell’s drum loops, and a little sprinkling of mandolin dust was all this one needed.”

—Paul Gargano, 08/06