No flash player!

A while back, when I was checking out some other artists’ sites to get ideas for my own, I came across something on Jamey Johnson’s site that I thought was really cool. Jamey had gone track by track and told the story behind every song on his (at that time) new record “That Lonesome Song.” (On a side note, if you don’t have that album yet, buy it immediately. It’s amazing.)

I thought to myself, “I would really like to do that once my record comes out.” I think that as an artist and a songwriter, there is not a more intimate experience you can share with your audience than filling them in on the inspiration behind the words and music you create.

Well, the record came out and soon after I was swamped with gigs to promote it and taking meetings down on music row. Well, here I am on one of my very rare nights off, alone in the hotel room because the boys picked up an extra show, and since 11:30 p.m. is like my noon, I can’t sleep…so, I thought now would be the perfect time to reflect on the songs on the record. I’m looking forward to reliving the moments and events that helped create these songs, and hopefully you will enjoy reading it as well…

PRELUDE IN JD

The boys and I just thought it would be cool to put an extended intro on “When I Can’t Love You.” Give a chance for Billy and Jonathan to show off right from the start of the record with organ, mandolin, and acoustic kicking it off. We didn’t realize the funny stories this intro would create, and more importantly the more shocking listening experience it would create for some of our fans. The track starts out with a real low organ rumble and then a very “swampy” acoustic and mandolin lick. Well, many of the fans who bought the CD have obviously seen us live and were very surprised to hear what sounded like an extremely mellow and “more country than usual” Goodfellers sound to start the record. So, they thought there must be an issue with the CD or their players, so they CRANKED their stereos…and then….”When I Can’t Love You” kicks in balls to the wall and temporarily deafens them. I’ve heard many people tell me that story…funny how something unintentional like that can create some great stories of the first listen to the CD. The title for the intro was born in Toronto, Canada with Christopher and I spit firing just stupid funny names for it…if you know us…the JD part needs no explanation.

WHEN I CAN’T LOVE YOU

Matt Cline, Brent Baxter, and I were in a co-writing session and Matt and I were just messing around on the guitar. We were both big into “drop D tuning” (lowering the lowest string of the guitar one step) thanks to our fascination and (perhaps unhealthy) songwriter worship of Tony Lane (wrote “I Need You,” “Letters From Home,” “Run,” and many, many others). We had our guitars in “Tony Lane tuning” and stumbled on the main riff for the song. I’ve found that I actually prefer writing this way- finding a cool guitar part or groove first and then finding a lyrical idea that goes along with that. I believe Brent had the title “When I Can’t Love You” written down and we thought it could be an interesting fit with the rockin’ guitar part, basically because, on first listen to that title it sounds like it wouldn’t fit a jamming guitar part. The title sounds kind of sappy, but we thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we could make it more like, “I get so worked up just from talking to you, I get dangerous when I can’t love you.” It didn’t hurt that Matt and Brent were both pretty much newly weds at that point and I had just gotten engaged. In fact, I think Brent’s mom’s response to that song was “you can tell a bunch of newly weds wrote that.”

FEED THE ADDICTION

I find that a lot of the songs Matt and I write come from just hanging out. We can be out on the boat fishing, mowing my always overgrown yard, or just sitting on the porch having a few beers with the guitars in hand. I don’t remember where we were, but Matt and I were talking about all the odd/extra jobs we’ve worked and sacrifices we’ve made to be in the music business (at the time, Matt was tiling bathrooms and kitchens in exchange for studio time with a local producer). We said something along the lines of, “yeah just keep feeding the addiction,” meaning the music habit we both have. We stored that phrase away for the next writing session. Sometimes songs can take multiple days, even weeks to get “right” (well, what we consider right, anyway). This song came very easy. We talked about all things that can be addictive, and someone’s love is definitely at the top of that list. When you need someone so much, that person becomes your drug, and the more you get, the more you need.

OPEN IT

Another Matt Cline co-write. Now there is some dispute as to how this song came about. Matt says he had the hook line “Open It” written down and we wrote it based on that. As far as I remember, I had read an article in The Tennessean about a man and a woman who were high school sweethearts. They dated all through high school and college and the man had bought his girlfriend a gold heart necklace for college graduation. The couple broke up before he ever gave her the necklace. Fast forward 20 years and she is divorced and he never married and they end up finding each other again and getting married. The man had saved the heart necklace in the wrapped gift box for 20 years, and he never even opened the package. I saved the article because I thought it could make a good song. Matt and I were discussing the story and the idea of the song and I said, “I just can’t believe he never even opened it.” Both of our writer ears perked up and we began writing the song “Open It.” For as easy as Feed The Addiction came to us, this one took forever to write. Trying to find all the different situations that tied in to “If you don’t open it” and make them meaningful at the same time, was not easy. We even had a few publishers on music row ask why we didn’t change this or try that and Matt’s response was “we ran out of things to open.” I never thought I would like this song as much as I do. Despite its “fuzzy” origins, I think it has a good message and I’m very proud of this one.

GIRLS OF SUMMER

Christopher and I come from pretty different schools of songwriting, even though we do like a lot of the same music and artists. Christopher comes from a “Segar & Springsteen” school of writing, and while I love both of these artists (especially The Boss), I am not accustomed to writing in that style. It was my first writing session with Christopher, and we hadn’t really done a ton of creative collaboration at this point (unless you expand the definition of creative collaboration to mean drinking Jack Daniels). He had a version of the entire song written and I really liked the way it felt and the groove behind it. He also had a lot of cool images and lines. Also, having spent a lot of time on the Jersey Shore as a kid, I could totally relate to the idea. He just had A TON of words and it was a little hard to follow exactly what was going on (alla Springsteen and Segar). So, I basically played editor and helped cut it down a little and try to bring a little more clarity to the scene. Actually, Christopher’s description of our co-writing is pretty funny…”Basically I show up with chords and a ton of lyrics and Orio gets out his red pen and starts crossing sh** out.” Hopefully this song gets you in a good mood and makes you wanna put the top down and blast it from the speakers. That’s what we were going for. By the way, expect a few more Griffiths/Orio collaborations on the next record.

YOU’LL LEARN TO LIKE IT

This song was written way back in 2006 with Brent Baxter. Brent and I had been writing for several years, pretty regularly. One day Brent and I were just talking about the dating scene and how different it was, even from when we first started dating as kids. I’m 28 years old, so it’s not like I’m going that far back, but I just remember being brought up to take care of everything on a date with a girl, especially when you’re first dating. You opened the door for her and you always picked up the check. There was no splitting of the checks in my dating world. Brent had been brought up the same way, even though he is a down-home Arkansasian and I’m a yankee paisan. We were laughing about how today some women even get insulted if you try to take care of everything on a date. So, this song was born out of trying to tell a girl, “I know this chivalry thing may be a little weird in today’s world and might freak you out a little, but give it a chance and…..you’ll learn to like it.” This song was another one of those songs that was re-written over and over again. It originally didn’t have all the chanting “you’ll learn to like it” parts with the different “small town date images” in the chorus. We actually kept re-writing it at the recommendation of Brent’s publisher at the time because they were really excited about the song. They kept telling us, “we love it, sounds ready for the radio, maybe just try this or that.” After 6 re-writes, they apparently did NOT “learn to like it,” but we did.

EYES CLOSED

Not all inspiration comes from your own experiences. Sometimes you just hear a really cool line on the street or in a book or in a movie. Matt, Brent, and I were writing one day out at my place and I was playing them a guitar part I had been saving for some time. I really liked it a lot and wanted to make sure that it had a really great idea to go with it. The movie “That Thing You Do” with Tom Hanks and Liv Tyler about a band of teenage rockers that hit it big back in the 60s, had just been on a bunch. In that movie Liv Tyler tells a guy that has been mistreating her, “I’m sorry for kissing you with eyes so tightly shut” (or something to that effect). I thought it was a great line and had written down for a possible song idea. The odd part….both Brent and Matt had written down that same exact line. We decided maybe it was fate and used that idea as inspiration for this song. We married the idea to my guitar part and Christopher and Kelly Schoenfeld (co-producer on the CD) did a hell of a job arranging it.

DRUNK GIRL

The only song I didn’t write on the record and one that I REALLY wished I had written. Jeffrey Steele (one of the writers on this song) is probably my biggest songwriting influence. The guy is just a complete bad ass. All his songs just have such energy and drive to them, they just fire you up- even the slower ones. I suggest you google him and check out his stuff. He’s written almost everything you’ve heard on country radio in the past 10 years. Anyway, I was at one of his shows back in 2003 or 2004 when I heard him do this song and it immediately became one of my favorite songs of all time. If you have ever been to college or just on a care free beach bender vacation, you can relate to this song. Most of us have had the wild drunken hook up, even if we won’t admit to it. I also like the way that even though this song is about a wild drunken hook up, it has a very young and innocent, and dare I say, sweet sentiment to it. The fact that the guys who wrote this tune were able to mesh those feelings together is genius. I learned the song on guitar the day after Jeffrey’s show and began playing it acoustically at our shows, while the Goodfellers took a break. It didn’t take them long to decide that they liked the song too much to not play it, and so it ended up on the record. The cool part is we actually won a contest hosted by GAC where we had to do a song by one of the writers on their reality show “Hitmen Of Music Row.” Jeffrey was on the show and while everyone else was covering his Rascal Flatts and Tim McGraw hits, we did Drunk Girl. Apparently, Jeffrey approved.

TICKET & A T-SHIRT

Matt came into the writing session with this hook written down. Both Brent and I thought it was a really cool sounding hook line and would look pretty interesting on paper because it could go a lot of ways. We explored the idea of writing it about a crazy road trip where all you have left is a ton of great memories, a ticket stub, and a cheesy t-shirt like one that says “I ate the worm in Mexico.” We soon decided that it would be more fun to write about a fan that is so fired up to see his favorite band that he will do anything to get that “ticket & a t-shirt.” I know I’m so glad we took it that way because it’s a great song to play live. Nothing like having the crowd sing along to “woo-hoo-hoo.” I won’t lie either, my own experience going to see my favorite band, The Rolling Stones, definitely played a part in coming up with the music to this one. I was also pumped that we wrote a song to use cowbell in.

VEGAS MONEY

One of the absolute truest song on the CD. There is no creative license or filling in the blanks on this one. I’ve lived every word of it from top to bottom (I’m a pretty decent blackjack and craps player). I had just gotten back from Vegas (it’s my Disney World- the happiest place on earth as far as I’m concerned) and was writing with Brent and Matt. I needed one more song for the CD and they wanted to try and help me write something to fill that spot. We didn’t really have any great ideas so after a few hours of trying to rack our brains, I just started telling them about my trip. I told them I had run into someone we all knew on my last flight to Vegas. Cline perked up and thought maybe that was a song. So we started talking it out to see what was there. Now, Brent, Matt and, I had written a good bit in the last month and I kept telling them how I wanted to write a song where you didn’t have any story, but just snap shot images that told the story without having to spell it out. Well, as we started talking about Vegas, we realized that it was the perfect setting for such a song since there are such vivid images associated with that city. Before long, we had Vegas Money written. After one rehearsal with the boys, Christopher had a smokin’ arrangement for it. Funny story how the lounge act in the middle of the song was born- I look over at Christopher after we rehearsed the song and he’s just covering his eyes laughing his ass off. I mean, his eyes are watering. I ask him, “what?” He manages to squeeze out, “nothing” in between fits of laughter. I ask again, “What?” He tells me, “Nevermind, it’s a stupid idea.” I said to him, “Most of your ideas are stupid, so tell me.” He says, “What if we break into a lounge act in the middle of the song and you do, like, a Sinatra thing.” My response: “I love it, it’s going in.” Definitely my favorite moment on the album. By the way….I do love The Mirage.

THAT’S SEXY

Another song born out of real life. This song is the oldest one on the CD. It was 2004 and I had just started dating my wife Natalie. I was writing with my buddy Chris Cavanaugh (check him out on facebook, a great up and coming singer/songwriter) and we hadn’t seen each other in a long time, so we spent most of the day catching up. I told him I had just started dating a new girl and was pretty excited about her. Naturally, being a songwriter, he began to quiz me about her. How had we met, what did she look like, what I liked about her. I actually had a picture of her in my wallet (perhaps a little stalkerish and creepy, I know), but we were living in 2 different cities separated by 500 miles, so pictures were about all we had. I showed him the picture and he agreed that she was very attractive. I started telling him about how the best part about her was despite how attractive she is, she is very humble and sweet, and doesn’t act or dress overly flashy to flaunt her good looks. She’s just naturally beautiful. Before I knew it, I was spouting out lines that would later be used in that song. I thought it was a perfect song to end what had taken 18 months of studios, musicians, and production. That song-just me and the guitar.

Hope you agree.