Though we started in the late summer of 2000, it took a bass player switch and until early 2002 to start to find a sound and style to match the earnestness and excitement of our live shows. Sometime during a late spring Middle East upstairs gig, Ken Cook from the Damn Personals said to me, “You guys really need to record with Matt Squire.” In our eyes the DP’s were well on their way, so we took the suggestion seriously (which was corroborated at a later date by nearly every other member of the band). Roger was the main star of Runner and everyone said that Matt got the best drum sounds in town. So, we got in touch and booked as much time as we could afford – maybe 3 days (?), at the old New Alliance in Boston.

Matt was incredibly friendly, felt like you knew him for years, but also super pro. His requirement that we have new drum heads seemed crazy to us – largely because we only had enough money for the studio time. If I’m remembering correctly, he even wanted new heads for every song, but there was no way we could swing that. Recollections of the session were pretty fast and cramped – I was in some sort of closet, it was hot, could barely maintain eye contact – and the vocal iso was even smaller, but at least it wasn’t doubling as a storage room. We rushed to finish writing one of the songs to have a solid four, Ship Ahoy, which led to needing a little “Drum Doctor” or Beat Detective or whatever – our first experience with such things. Before he started he turned to me (I was the only one in the control room) and said, “If you’ve never seen this before, you may want to leave. It’s going to make you really uncomfortable.” Another first was using an amp plug-in for the Into Apples Rotting bass solo. I remember Mike never being satisfied with that thing, but it did help it cut, and perhaps it was also a resistance to digital for such an analog guy. For my guitars, I remember Matt having me noodle slowly and randomly through a Memory Man throughout Mechanical Heart. I believe he called this his “secret weapon” and/or “sonic glue.” I still use this trick quite often… And the final piece I recall involves my vocal performances. Matt kept trying to push my voice harder, trying to get some hard rock grit, power, and emotion to it. I knew what he wanted, but I physically couldn’t do it. Had never done it before and had no idea what it felt like. We tried and tried and for some reason I just wasn’t there yet, which I find really interesting because maybe a month after the session my voice sort of “broke” and that became the only way I could sing for many years. Once my voice switched over to the gritty side, it became how I naturally sang and gave the band the added punch it needed to match the drums, guitar, and bass. Very interesting to me that he heard that, and I’m curious what the EP would have felt like had I been able to turn that corner sooner.

To wrap things up, we were all really satisfied with the EP (though had no money to have it mastered or pressed into anything) and Matt even passed it along to some folks that resulted in meetings, discussions, and offers. We ultimately stuck with the team we were already working with, and our careers went their separate ways. Regretfully, though the EP served as a great demo or business card, opened a lot of doors, but it never saw a proper release. I have a lot of respect for Matt, particularly because the sounds he was already hearing and developing way back then, his style, would come to fruition with all the multi-platinum Panic! At The Disco music he'd produce, a band where you can clearly hear his love for big, full drums, bigger guitars, and intense vocal performances.

- Marc 8.20.20