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The Spring EP started with a challenge from Dana, on the last day of his visit: "Let's record a song we haven't written yet."
I started with two short riffs on an electric guitar. He responded on an acoustic while I stepped into the other room to furiously write some lyrics. I came back, sang them, and stepped out to write a chorus while he had his way with a drum machine. We went on layering tracks until Dana had to catch his bus, and the result is "One by One", the third song on the EP.
The other three original songs came together in much the same way. Each time I started with a sound I'd never made before, and built a song by talking to that sound. I worked 16 hour days because it felt important not to stop conversations midway through.
The goal was to make spaces, not necessarily to tell stories—though I did end up with stories of a sort. The EP is mostly about place, time, sex, and a train ride.
The last song, a cover, is a bookend. It's the only song with just guitar and voice, and the only song I played and sang at the same time.
I tracked everything to my laptop in a dorm room. At the beginning of "The Weekend" (track 4), you can hear my broken heater contribute a few of its death rattles. The thing has made awful noises all winter, right next to my bed, but yesterday maintenance came to fix it—just in time for spring.
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Chris Frank
New York, April 2009
FYI--you can download The Spring EP at 256 kbps (for free) from chrisfrank.org.
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