People have a reaction when I say I’m recording a children’s album. When I just say I’m recording an album they’re like “oh cool!” but when I say it’s a children’s album they ask why?

I guess it’s because my dad put the idea in my head a long time ago. I’d always make up silly songs just in the car, everybody does, and my dad would say “Quit making that obnoxious rock music, you should make a children’s album”. So I guess you could say I have daddy issues.

It was important that I do everything, or as much as I could, by myself. A little Randian in my beliefs. I've gotten input from a few awesome buds of mine, but I really wanted to prove to myself that I could pull off a whole cohesive album alone. Through that I get total control, with the only compromise being that I have to play with myself (Entendre!) … Also, I’m really bad at making up band names, so just using my name relieved a lot of the stress.

At the Zoo - It started with At the Zoo. I wrote it a year ago while singing for this 80’s hard rock cover band, Black Jack Bombers (See how bad that name is?). I needed an outlet for all the outrageous partying that band usually had me singing about, so I wrote my own ditty. Couldn't get too far away from my hair metal roots though. It’s actually about how great a place the zoo is to take a girl on a date, because if I've gone to the zoo with a girl, I've probably slept with her. There’s an alternate lyric that makes that more explicit.

I Pet A Dog – Inspired by a real life dog walking with my friend who’s “best name is always dude”, this track came together the easiest. It just fell out of the drum beat and the simple bass slide, for which I was ridiculed by my meter manipulating friend. It is bone headedly simple.

Harold’s Song – I have a blue Betta named Harold and this is mostly a true account. In the song I try to him very ambivalent, an especially indecisive and middle of the road fish. However, in real life he’s kind of a jerk. He murdered all his shrimp friends and just gives off an air of arrogance when I feed him. Like I owe him or something I dunno.

Orange Toes – This one was just trying to capture the feeling of running after you've gotten past that point where you feel like you’re running. Like when you’re really more of a gazelle bounding and stuff’s just moving past you, not you past it. And when you’re a kid you get that feeling a lot and you have that orange fungus that collects in between your toes. Not sure how that potato verse got in there.

Snoveralls – Also written nearer to last year than this one, I had just quit Black Jack Bombers( and wanted to use as much studio time as I could while it was free at WPTS. There’s a place by my house called “The Ditch” where I’d go sled, and if I had school the next day I’d literally go out and put snow on the street to try to get school cancelled.

Looks like I talk about another person on just about every track description, so I guess it wasn't the solo album I thought it was.

Thanks Dad, Dan Willis, Ali L’esperance, Sara Birmingham, WPTS Radio, Harold.

Taylor Nodell 2014 ©