The new release for 2015 from Chris Heers and the Dirt Rich Band!
Track List:
1. Fannye Katrina
2. Leaning Into Barstow
3. Trailer 19
4. Halfway
5. Drunken baker
6. Twentynine Palms
7. Road Trip
8. Joe Security
9. Pony Express
10. Shoreline
11. Naturally High
12. The Matador
13. The Cactus
STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS: THE ROAD AHEAD SHINES
1. Fannye Katrina
I was puttering around the house, doing dishes or something and in the background there was a news special that I could hear on CNN. It was the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the man who was being interviewed on TV was talking about how his restaurant used to be on the water but was completely wiped out and is now located inland. He said something like, "We'll be back there again though...I know it". I remember pumping my fist and saying out loud as I was washing the dishes, "Yeah buddy... you will be back!". Later that night or the next day I was noodling around with my old black Takamine acoustic guitar and that song just came out. I have no idea where Fannye the Angel or whatever she was came from but I am thankful that she rolled through my pen. I knew what she looked like as soon as I said her name because there was a real Fannye who I used to help take care of in the early 90's. She was elderly, late 80's from Georgia via Louisiana, and she used to cook me things after I went to the grocery store for her; Great things like collard greens "washed in two waters" she would say, and chicken cooked in real lard baby. "She looked like the woman on the pancake syrup bottle..." There were two that came to mind, Mrs. Butterworth and Aunt Jemima. Fannye looks like AJ but more wrinkled. Beautiful. The Fannye in the song is luminescent. Her brown face is wise and somewhat younger than the Fannye I used to take care of. The Fannye in the song swims up to my character with a face that glows with an energy and love that can't be put into words. She is not from here. That I know.
In my mind the main character, a fisherman, was having breakfast in his boat – pancakes. As he looks out the window at the grey wall of hurricane coming toward him he sees the bottle of pancake syrup, one of the last things he sees on the boat before the mast disappears into the sea. As he starts hallucinating three days later he has this picture in his head – the pancake bottle. Fannye swims up to him and assumes the form of the woman in his head to make things easier for him.
I know that you can float on a bag of potato chips because it really happened to me when I was in high school. My buddy Jim and I ditched school with some other kids of questionable intentions and we went to Lake Mead for the day. Jim's dad, Jim Sr., had a large boat there with a rubber motorized dinghy. It was brand new and very off limits to us like the boat itself. The dinghy was attached to the back of Jim’s dad's boat. Long story short, this kid Randy had the engine and rudder of the dinghy and I was on the bow holding a rope like a bronc rider as we slammed into these huge windy lake waves. Next thing I knew we slammed into a massive wave and we were both in the water with the dinghy disastrously empty of it's passengers and stuck on full throttle while heading for Jim Jr. who was on a jet ski in the distance. We were in a dire position but it was strangely hilarious to see Jim’s dad’s boat heading straight for him unmanned at full throttle. Jim Jr. managed to jump off the Jet Ski onto the dinghy at high speed and save the boat and his ass that day, a courageous maneuver at that speed. Randy and I were about a mile off shore surrounded by floating snacks that had fallen overboard with us. I decided to let my tennis shoes sink in order to stay buoyant with my big yellow bag of Lays which I floated on until rescue. Thank you Lays!!!
Fannye says, "I could explain it in detail but it would be like talking about outer space with a fish. Child just know that you don't know and have faith." I don't know if Fannye is an Angel, a mermaid, or a hallucination but she does save the fisherman in more ways than one. I hope she is an Angel.
Recording trivia ~ Fannye Katrina
One of the coolest surprises that happened in the studio was when Drummer John Gardner broke out the sleigh bells.
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar
John Mock – Tin Whistles
Chris Heers – Vocals/Background Vocals/Harmonica
2. Leaning Into Barstow
I half thought about calling this album "Barstow" because that town seems to have influenced a bunch of the songs. I was extremely tired on the I-15 on the way to a show in southern California. I had come from a show in Sedona and decided to drive right on through. I was pulling myself up on the steering wheel; slapping myself hard "Leaning in" it seemed while I saw the Barstow 68 miles sign pass. I ended up pulling over and sleeping for a bit. I sing "Six Days on the Road" and "Willin" with my band. I Love truck driver songs. I wanted to write one that could hang with the greats. Those guys were taking little white pills. My guy is relying on the desert air, the radio, and a gallon of “Joe” to pull him through. On second thought, maybe I should have called this album "Joe".
I recently did an acoustic songs and stories show in Hollywood with Justin Furstenfeld from Blue October. I noticed that when he plays his ballady love songs he has all these beautiful women coming apart at his show. It reminded me of a show I did at the Gold Strike out near Stateline, NV except instead of beautiful women in the front row it was all professional truck drivers coming apart. Maybe I should start writing more ballady love songs.
Recording notes ~ Leaning into Barstow
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar
Steve Hinson – Steel Guitar
Chris Heers – Vocals/Background Vocals
3. Trailer 19
I never intended to record this song myself but I just like playing it. So shoot me. Maybe Taylor Swift will still do it. I could use a new house. I digress though. I was working at a day job at the time where we would have to make copies of people’s driver's licenses for credit checks. One customer had T-16 or something like that as the address on her license. I stupidly asked her what that meant and she said Trailer 16. She wasn't embarrassed though. I thought about how some people could be embarrassed saying they lived in a trailer park. I wouldn't be though. Trailers rule. I live in my Sprinter van half the time when I am in LA. I wrote the song around a girl who turned one trailer into another one.
Trivia: I wrote most of this song in a modular trailer structure at that day job that same night that I met the T-16 girl on this old cheap Yamaha guitar that was lying around. The strings were dead but it sounded nice.
Recording notes ~ 29 Palms
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar/Mandolin
Tammy Pierce - Background Vocals
Chris Heers - Lead Vocal/Background Vocals
4. Halfway
You won’t find any women in this album who are standing on tailgates pouring ice-cold beer on their tank tops and shaking their “moneymakers”. There are plenty of those girls on the radio. Wait just a minute, is that how you get on the radio? Hmmm. Maybe I’ll sell out on the next album. For now though here is the story behind the song “Halfway”
I used to play this solo acoustic show in Sedona, Arizona at a bar called The Full Moon Saloon. The Full Moon was the only place open until 2:30am in that part of Sedona, near Bell Rock in the Village of Oak Creek. It was great because I could crash at my grandma's place two blocks away. The Moon is a great place full of European tourists and local industry people who like to sing along.
There was this girl at one of my day jobs who was an extreme rock climber. She was really nice to me until she found out that I was friends with some people she had a prior disagreement with. Then she kind of gave me the cold shoulder. It had nothing to do with me but I am one of those people who can have a thousand friends but feels the jab of the one who isn't. So this girl was on my mind jabbing me. I was thinking about how to win her over while I was driving to Sedona and also multi thinking about some rock hiking I was going to do near the Sedona vortexes. Those patterns of thinking merged and I started humming this song about a female rock climber in Sedona. I am sure that there is some psychoanalyst who could explain how this girl not liking me and this character being ostensibly suicidal fit in with each other. The girl in the story is my hero though. She is as much of a badass as Joe Security. "Some people when they lose their dreams they put a bottle in their hand. Some people find a giant sheet of rock in the middle of the sand.”
Trivia ~ Halfway
I do this song in some live settings with her using some profanity. On the studio album though, I borrowed a page from Cee Lo Green and made it PG. I’ll attach a live version as well. Spoiler alert – skip if you haven’t heard this song. It seems she is going to commit suicide but she has no intention of that. She’s only come halfway. The road ahead shines.
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach – Keyboards/Synth
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar
Tammy Pierce - Background Vocals
Chris Heers - Background Vocals
5. Drunken baker
In another life I was a Hotel Management major. I even studied in Europe although I don't remember much because we never spit out the wine. My favorite professor, Dr. Don Bell at UNLV said something that always stuck with me. He said, "All great bakers drink, just roll with it." Not in those exact words probably but that was the gist of it. I never forgot that piece of trivia. This story is told from the point of view of the owner of the famous (famous by way of it's spectacularly successful bakery) Hotel Brown. I am not sure where this hotel is but it feels like the mid-west so I put it in Indiana circa 1942 at the beginning of the song when the young baker who would rather bake than play football gets his first job at 10 years old. He is in his 40’s when he hits the height of his fame, and the height of his drinking problem, just about the time that the first Atkins Diet book was published. People would line up around that bakery just to have a croissant. The owner of the hotel wants the baker to stop drinking but she also wants the money to keep rolling in. Everybody really wants him to keep drinking. It’s his trademark. When he sobers up his concoctions fall apart. Oh the irony. I see this baker as a symbol of the myriad of artists, writers, painters, actors of all kinds who created under the influence and didn’t believe that they could create as well sober. The people surrounding them want the cash coming in (celebrity enablers). Who wants to watch so and so sober? I didn’t put this on my first album because I thought it was too silly but the damn story wouldn't go away so bon appétit.
Recording notes ~ Drunken Baker
We spent a lot of time on the placement and dictation of the words "Bake It". I did it. Tammy, my background singer did it. I did it slower. Tammy did it funkier. I said, "Bake it" then Tammy said "Yeah.. Bake it!". In the end we just kept the original. "Bake it" that I sang on the rough track. If you are singing along take a deep breath. This song is like Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues…hard to sing all those words on stage without suffocating but I have figured it out. Bake away!
Andrea Zonn - Fiddle
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar/Banjo/Backgrond Vocals
Steve Hinson – Dobro
Tammy Pierce - Background Vocals
Chris Heers - Vocals/Background Vocals
6. Twentynine Palms
Many of my songs start while I am driving, especially so on this album. I had always envisioned Twentynine Palms as this magical 1950’s resort place near sand dunes where Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra would sip martinis with Elvis and beautiful Technicolor women with 50’s polkadot bathing suits would jump off tall diving boards. I was driving past the Twentynine Palms Marine Air Base on I-15 and while thinking about that and this song and character started to form. The character is 60'ish and remembering his first wedding and how wonderful that time of his life was before they let it slip away years later. He says, "It's funny how time slips away. Man that line is so cliché, but it is what it is 'cause it's true. And when that sun is floating high, sometimes the road ahead shines and I see you." I took the album title from this song. It has a triple meaning; Shines as in optimism, Shines as in a mirage, Shines in sadness / reflection. In this song his eyes tear up as he sees his first wife in the mirage on the road ahead. I think this could be the best country song I’ve written.
Recording notes ~ 29 Palms
I wanted a Jimmy Webb Wichita Lineman feel combined with some vintage George Strait so Pat borrowed an old Jerry Jones Baritone Electric Guitar with rusted out strings and played it through a Fulltone Supa-Trem.
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach – Grand Piano
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar/Baritone Electric Guitar/Background Vocals
Steve Hinson - Steel Guitar
Tammy Pierce - Background Vocals
Chris Heers – Vocals/Background Vocals
7. Road Trip
I was working on songs for a friend's album, Sammy Steele. We had written a bunch of songs between 07 and 09 for it all of which ended up with us drunk at the 24 hour Mexican food joint down the street from my ranch. One of the ideas we came up with was "Road Trip" about a guy who drives across country and all of the things he sees. I pulled out some paper and we just brainstormed this whole page of shit he would see, do, and eat. What do you eat on sporadic road trips? Slim Jims and Pork Rinds of course. Any red blooded American man knows this. We gave the guy a Washington start point since Sammy lived in Tacoma at the time and off he went. The two things that were going through my head were Forest Gump when he said... "I just felt like running" and the wonderful liberating terrifying freedom and faith of not really knowing where you are going. "I don't know where I'm going but the sun is shining." This later became life imitating art for me (as did Twentynine Palms I guess). At the time of writing this song I had also just come back from Omaha, Nebraska for a funeral of one of the best friends I ever had, my buddy Rhett. I stayed there in Omaha for a while and when I got to know Rhett and Linda’s friends I was shocked and stupefied at the level of insanity that Cornhuskers fans aspire to in their passion for their team. I learned the words "Go Big Red" there. I wanted to put a little of Nebraska into this song as a tribute to my friends. I ended up saving this song for my album in the end.
Trivia ~ Road Trip
The banjo played on this track is an '84 Gibson Earl Scruggs Signature model that somehow actually smelled like Earl Scruggs. Not sure how they engineered that feature into it. Pat and I kept smelling it during the session. Yes… Earl for sure. Unmistakable. Beautiful maple back and retro Gibson headstock. I can't play a lick on it but Pat drove it like an F-150.
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar/Banjo
Steve Hinson - Steel Guitar
Chris Heers - Vocals/Background Vocals
8. Joe Security
I knew I had something with this song when I found myself in a room full of Harley riding war veterans at the Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings, NV. It was just past noon and I was just getting started with an unplugged duo show. The drinks hadn't started flowing that heavy yet and it was very mellow so I asked them if they wanted to hear one that I was thinking about putting on my next album. At the end of the song it was dead quiet and one of the leather vested Marine Corps veterans got up and gave me a one hundred dollar bill.
How the song came about:
I was working a night job where all the security officers provided by the security company seemed 80'ish. None had guns (as far as I knew). I also noticed that nobody gave these old timers the time of day. They were in the background. They were mostly of pot bellied jovial characters who were happy to be out of the house. I was many times bored to tears at night so I got the chance to know all of them. Holy hell the stories. One thing I realized quickly was that I was in no danger. Some of these guys were ex Navy SEALS (although they weren't called SEALS back then). Some were ex FBI, ex Swat. D-Day vets, Viet Nam vets, Korea.
The character in the song is a compilation of all these guys. My guy Joe was at D-Day. He was on a riverboat in Saigon. He was saving the world. I love the contrast but also the parallels of the latter day Joe working at Disneyland. I came up with Disneyland because Disneyland is American freedom. In the first draft I had Joe Security carrying a gun "I've got a badge and a gun and I walk around" but then I went back to Disneyland and realized Disneyland security officers don’t carry guns. At least they didn't back then. But this guy does have a smile, he loves what he does, so I illuminated that instead. He has a completeness and pride that he and his boys bought the ride that we enjoy every day. The American Ride as the fella says. Their greatest generation bought it for us. Bought and paid for. "I wish the boys could only be here now. We bought this ride when we wouldn’t back down.”
Trivia ~ Joe Security
Disneyland Security officer Michael Dougherty was kind enough to give me the tour and pose for some shots one of which appears in the album insert in the physical album. Even though he has white hair and moustache, Michael is not quite old enough to be Joe but I found a shot that fit.
Andrea Zonn - Fiddle
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitars
Chris Heers - Lead Vocal/Background Vocals
9. Pony Express
I was driving on a side road through the Coconino Forest into Flagstaff, Arizona. As the trees were rushing by I had this nudging that I should write a song about what it is like to be alone inside of those tree lined dirt trails on a horse with no freeway noise; nothing but stars and hoofs on trail. I had this vision of a song that was so sparse you could feel the space and the silence around you. True and clean. I thought of a Pony Express rider and what it would have been like back then at full gallop at night alone with the stars. When I went to write it a few months later some of that happened but this side story unfolded which was filled with a lot more action. The amazing thing is that after I wrote it I checked the places and dates and I was spot on in place and time. I Googled the history of the Pony Express in Northern Nevada after writing it because I didn't want to misrepresent the period or the Native Americans in the area. I certainly didn’t want to misrepresent the Paiute’s especially since I play some of those casinos LOL. But, that really happened - not the exact story, but the Pony Express riders being waylaid by the Paiutes did actually happen and in that place too. I am planning a mountain bike ride on the same route.
Here is the way that the main character came about. I have been involved with a charity called Spirit Therapies for the last five years. My band plays their annual fundraiser at the South Point Casino every year. Spirit Therapies takes handicapped kids and give them the opportunity to ride horses. They are now working with wounded warriors as well. It is really an amazing organization. www.spirittherapies.org That is where the boy in the story came from. He is not a full paraplegic but his legs don't work. Everything else does though and he is able to pull himself up onto a pony and fulfill the impossible dream of serving his country like his brothers who are off at war. "My legs don't work but on a horse I'm as fast as any man..." This song takes me there every time I play it. Especially when the wagon wheel size tumbleweeds are rolling across trail past the high blue cactus. I can feel the wind in my face blowing the brim of my hat up. Maybe this really happened. Somewhere in history some kid who couldn't walk did something heroic on a horse.
Recording notes ~ Pony Express. The wind is played by Jeff as Bobby's boy skirts the ridge.
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ/Synth Wind
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar
Steve Hinson - Steel Guitar
Chris Heers – Vocals / Background Vocals
10. Shoreline
This isn't my first song about a couple on opposite shorelines. "True Love” On my first album is about two people who have never met and is set in present day. This song is set in 18th century France where the woman is and out on the front of sea battle where the man is shipped off to. Somewhere cold. I think I may be the first guy to inject the words “ma chérie” into a country song. I originally wrote this for a Céline Dion pitch but I don’t think she ever got to hear it. This is my first duet that I have recorded on a studio album. Listen for the Irish Bouzouki.
Recording notes ~ Shoreline
This song really held up the whole album from completion. I had everything done but this song. I just couldn't find the right girl to sing the female part. There are so many amazing vocalists but I wanted someone foreign and exotic for this song; French in a perfect world. I ended up casting a friend who used to sit in at my old full band jam in Vegas. Vanessa Andrea. She was made for it. We recorded her vocal at Odds On Studio in Vegas so it really was two people on opposite ends of the earth since I recorded my part in Nashville.
Andrea Zonn - Fiddle
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach – Grand Piano
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar/Irish Bouzouki
Tammy Pierce - Background Vocals
Chris Heers - Lead Vocal/Background Vocals
Vanessa Andrea - Lead Vocal/Background Vocals
11. Naturally High
I woke up early once and strapped on my running shoes. I said to myself as I ran, "This is better than the best beer." It was that runner’s high that you get. It really is amazing! Everything looks so bright and new like you are looking at the trees for the first time. I wasn’t in the greatest shape and had gone two or three miles but I felt so damn good that I kept running. I wrote that song that same day and made the character an Oklahoma College Student – kind of a fraternity house kid who decides for once not to party with his buddies that particular Saturday night. He hits the sack early and reads a few short stories by Mark Twain before waking up at 5am, stepping over the people passed out on the couch, and hitting the countryside. I think I was reading Mark Twain’s "Roughing it" at the time. "The Oklahoma sky is big and blue and bright... I forgot how beautiful life is." I used to be one of those drunken college kids. I wish I would have realized then that life is so much better without the booze. Then again I would probably be some attorney or power broker instead of a broke mangy transient songwriter.
Recording notes ~ Naturally High.
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards/Organ
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar/Mandolin/Banjo
Chris Heers - Harmonica/Background Vocals
Trivia: This is the favorite song of some of my earliest supporters who would come see me rain or shine when I was playing solo, my long distance dirty runner girls who think nothing of waking up at 5am and hitting the open desert for a brisk twenty mile run. These are the types of hard-core strong women who inspired the characters in this album. They are strong like bull. I keep threatening to run with them.
12. The Matador
This song came out of a riff on an old Spanish flamenco guitar I was dinking around with. Out of nothing but a blank piece of paper. The Matador is one of my oldest songs never recorded on a studio album, just about ten years old. I was a finalist in the Dallas Song Contest with it in 2005. I was reading a lot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez at the time and some of his magic realism style rubbed off into this story. I was reading his “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. I was also concurrently re-reading “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway which led me to study some of the great Matadors referenced in the story. One of the most famous of that tradition took his own life when told by his doctor that he would certainly die if he continued to do all the things he loved; namely, booze, cigars, women, bullfighting, riding his horse etc. He ended up, as the popular story goes, going to his villa and partying like a rock star for a while with all of the above before shooting himself. *
I thought about how cool it would have been for that Matador to have gone back in the ring one more time; letting the bull win on purpose. Better karma and a hell of a show! The Matador in this song, mid 60's and riddled with the ailments his lifestyle has brought upon him. His “blindness” is his alcoholism combined with the loss of his ability to create his art (Hemingway’s shock treatments which made him lose his memory and led him to suicide came to mind). Still this Matador knows that even in his “blind” state he can make one more go of a bull that wants to kill him and he does just that while the fans erupt. "The crowd they never love you more than when you say goodbye.”
I am not saying it is right or wrong what this Matador did. Only the “Angels in sombreros” know. I would have chosen the booze, cigars, and hookers but that’s just me. Like Al Pacino says in Scent of a Woman, “Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard”
Trivia: The great bullfights of Spain started with Trumpet. I called Trumpet ace Steve Patrick, one of the best in the world who happened to be in the neighborhood. You have to love Nashville. With no notice he rolled into my session with a few trumpets and took us all into the bullring.
I painted the Toro on the album cover early 2014. I paint fast until I feel something then I stop. Like the other characters in the song it all ends up working out for the Toro in the end. He has this expression like Robert Redford had at the end of the movie “The Candidate” when he shockingly wins the presidential election. “What now?” You will notice that on page 10 in the insert, the Toro meeting The Cactus is now free of the banderillas that he was injured with on the cover. The Road Ahead Shines.
Recording notes ~ The Matador
John Gardner - Drums/Percussion
David Francis - Bass
Jeff Roach - Keyboards
Rob McNelley - Electric Guitars/Background Vocals
Pat McGrath – Flamenco Guitar
Steve Patrick - Trumpet
Tammy Pierce - Background Vocals
Chris Heers – Vocals
Sara Emily Parish – Background Vocals
13. The Cactus
This song would not be on the album if it had not been for "Sarah the Butterfly" on my last album. The only song that could possibly be weirder than Sarah the Butterfly is this song. Butterfly turns into baby... yeah but what about a man turning into a friggin cactus? Both songs were not intended to be released but they kept nagging me. Both songs were also originally written in a stream of councoiousness. "Then an angel with a Rolex took his hand and said Joe you're a busy man...” I did this song in one take changing things slightly. My original lyric had a lizard in it as well as a snake. Not sure what happened to the lizard. It is purposely sparse with simply acoustic guitar and accordion. I thought about going into the Sonoran Desert with a field recorder to capture the sounds of the night but there just aren’t many unless it is raining.
Trivia about The Cactus:
I was drinking when I wrote it.
Jeff Roach - Accordian
Pat McGrath - Acoustic Guitar
Chris Heers - Vocal