Behind the Songs - Be Filled

Be Filled spilled out of journal entries and recordings  touring around the United States parts Europe, Canada, Quebec, Ireland, in planes, buses,  hotel rooms, walks and car rides and of course back home in So Cal.   The touring time was split between playing with The Kry,  Kenny Loggins and my own little gigs here and there.  

'Rachel's Piano' I sat down and wrote one day on a baby grand we had in the back room in our house.  After that i think every time I passed that piano and any other piano I played that little tune on it.  

'In It All' started like a slow acoustic kinda Bob Dylan ballad vibe then i decided to play it for Rachel.  I got to the second line of the tune and she said "It's to slow and the chorus needs to modulate." I then asked her do you know what that means " modulate?" she sai "No, but it needs to do it". At that point i remembered an alternate tuning i always wanted to write a song in because i could play in two different keys in that tuning and it still sound very open.  I quickly tuned my guitar and played the intro the way it is all the way through to the chorus the 1st time! I said to Rachel "i love it !".  She said "Good, I'm going to take a bath now."  So funny, things haven't change much. Most of Wait for Me was recorded in my mbox and titanium Mac laptop in the back of a tour bus and some hotel room.  No Gravity was penned in a hotel room.  Beautiful Forever was written in the back of a tour bus.  I remember guys popping their head in sayin "hey that sounds good".  I was singing the chorus "there's something bout forever with you....."  thinking about heaven but while singing it I had an overwhelming sense that  God was saying that to me.  It's a song about God's gift.   

So many of these songs were inspired lyrically by bible studies that navigated me through each moment during that season.  Those living Words really began calm my fears,  anxious heart and began to give me perspective on the past, courage for the present and hope for the future.

I think the big mess of musical influences on this record would be Bob Dylan, Jackson Brown, Willy Porter, Ellis Paul, Don Henry, Switchfoot, U2,  Jeff Beck, maybe Paul McCartney. 

Much more to talk about on this album maybe a podcast in the future would be good :-)