I’m excited to announce that we released a new song into the streaming music world on April 20th, 2021. This one is an oldie that’s taken various forms over the years but has been newly mixed with a new vocal track, and enhanced with some sweet harmonies.
Writing Maroon Balloon
This song was started a long time ago, probably 2008. I remember distinctly starting with the music and the verse specifically. It’s a I – ii chord vamp thing that was heavily influenced by the verse figure in Phish’s Limb by Limb. the back and forth felt a little like riding gentle waves on a boat and I let that kind of guide where the melody would go.
From there, I wanted to see the melody line rise like a large wave so the chords climb up to iii and IV before falling back to that gentle lull of the main riff. As it stands to reason, I felt like the chorus ultimately needed us to climb all the way up to the V at the “top of the wave” before once again, restarting the cycle.
The lyrics for Maroon Balloon were a kind of personal experiment with subjective symbolism. I was thinking of songs with subjects that seem innocuous but may develop a secondary meaning. Things like Raspberry Beret, Little Red Corvette, Sledgehammer, or MacArthur Park (aka “Someone left the cake out in the rain”) were fascinatingly visual, yet clever.
Recording Maroon Balloon
We started with an acoustic guitar, bass and voice demo. That’s Matt the drummer playing bass while Miles sings and plays acoustic guitar.
Eventually, we got in the studio to record drums, bass and guitar. It sat like that for a better part of a decade before I recently (in 2021) recorded main and harmony vocals to finish it off. The finished product can be heard below.
