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If you dropped two or three little candy wrappers in your apartment everyday for seven years, you'd be up to your armpits in it and for us that was what it was. Someone needed to get a big broom and just sweep out all the candy wrappers.
-Chris Barron on the demise of Spin Doctors
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There wasn't any particular lingering acrimony. There weren't any grudges. It was more just a tremendous accumulation of small things that had been left, completely unattended. By the time we broke up, we'd been together for about seven years, with absolutely zero housekeeping. If you dropped two or three little candy wrappers in your apartment everyday for seven years, you'd be up to your armpits in it and for us that was what it was. Someone needed to get a big broom and just sweep out all the candy wrappers.
Chris Barron - Spin Doctors :: 1994 by Paul La Raia |
Aaron Comess (Drums) and I remained friends throughout this whole thing. We go out to lunch together and stuff like that. Mark lives in Texas. We hadn't spoken, but there weren't any hard feelings. Eric Schenkman (guitar, vocals) and I had run into each other, unfortunately at funerals. I ran into him at Bobby Sheehan's funeral, and we chatted for a while. We sat in with Blues Traveler together at one point on the Horde tour.
When Wetlands was about to close, they called us up and asked us to get the original band back together. To tell the truth, I wasn't that into doing it, but I didn't want to be the jerk front man so I did it. It was great! We had one rehearsal beforehand. I came in with a manila envelope, with notes. I had written a list of every song it seemed like we might do. Pretty much a list of thirty or forty songs, and I just started calling them out. We walked in, and everybody was being totally cool, like musicians. I called out "What Time Is It," Aaron counted it off, and it was like we'd been in the middle of a tour, mid-season form. The song ended, there was this pregnant silence, and the technician on the rehearsal goes, "Jesus Christ!" We all laughed, it broke the ice.
Barron & Schenkman - Spin Doctors :: 2005
By Susan J. Weiand |
You could hear seven years of musical growth and maturity. Our tone had been darkened. The grain of it all was shining through. This is an amazing ensemble of musicians. A lot of high quality musicians go their whole life without ever finding a group they can groove with like that. From that point on, we've been a band.
We did the gig. There were producers and tour people there, and they said, "How about you guys go out in the Spring and do two weeks of dates?" The two weeks went great, so they said, "How about a Summer tour?" So we went out with the Gin Blossoms in 2002. We had a ball; it was a great atmosphere on the tour, kind of a friendly rivalry. Everybody wanted to dominate musically, it was cool. And of course we dominated musically. On the tour we said, "Let's make a record." We were writing a little bit. I'm the predominate writer for sure, but we do collaborate a lot. I used to get scared. I'd think, "Oh man, I lost it. I can't write anymore." I wouldn't write a song for three months or for six months. Now I've realized after 20 years of writing that I just need a break from time to time. Eric writes a song on every record. We were writing as a band.
We started getting the tunes together. I decided we have to go into the studio with a producer that we all really respect - a referee. It's going well, but let's not push it. We put our feelers out, contacted the classic producers and among them was Matt Wallace (Sheryl Crow, Blues Traveler, Maroon 5). He was really excited to work with us. We talked on the phone and really hit it off.
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