Dead Man

I wrote this song quite a few years back. It's based on real-life events, but definitely changed a bit for dramatic effect. I remember how struck I was by Jason Isbell's (Drive-By Truckers) song, Decoration Day. It's such a great take on the crap that happens in a small town and how these things move from generation to generation. I believe that I wrote the words for Dead Man at the airport on the way home from a research trip to Ecuador. I remember that I didn't have any music to go along with the lyrics for quite a while... but then saw Paul Lamb play at Macs Bar in Lansing one night and got the inspiriation for the original music. Dirt Road Logic recorded the song for our second album. The track kicks a lot of ass and Eric did a great job singing it.

The Rock-n-Roll EP, Dirt Road Logic, 2009

Notes: Paul D on electric guitar and vocals, Luke Elder on drums, Eric Kelly on vocals, Jeremy Mackinder on bass

When RCE was formed, we initially talked about playing this song similar to the original arrangement. However, I wasn't sure that I wanted to get into that type of overlap with DRL so I sat down with an acoustic and tried to work out a more laid-back version of the song. It wasn't too hard and the band picked up on exactly what I was going for. Ben, Dave B, Steve, and I worked our an arrangement in early January of 2011, then we played it together as a band for the first time later that month.

Rehearsal, January 29, 2011

Notes: Dave B on acoustic guitar, Paul on pedal steel guitar and vocals, Dave O on drums, Steve on bass, Ben on electric guitar

Like many of the songs in the "acoustic" set, we played around a bit with the instrumentation. The pedal steel and banjo combo sounded so cool on some other tracks that we tried it out on this one also. And, again, Dave B knocked it out of the ballpark on the banjo and adds a huge level of "creepy" to the song. In the current live version, we have Ben on electric, but when we go to record album #2, I think the acoustic will be much cooler as it is on the next track.

Rehearsal, May 1, 2011

Notes: Dave B on banjo, Paul on pedal steel guitar and vocals, Dave O on drums, Steve on bass, Ben on acoustic guitar