Weszt

Despite the absence of any recent posts, I’ve been extremely busy and have recently performed several new songs – one of which brought me to tears last Friday night. That wasn’t completely unexpected, as I cried while trying out the song at home a few hours earlier. Rizzo, who happened to be sitting in front of me during the performance, made mention that this tune (called “Can’t Help Falling Down”) was probably the most straightforward chord progression he’d ever heard me do and he’s right – it is straightforward. Everyone really seemed to like the song, but I’m not confident that I’ll be introducing it as a band song anytime soon because this one really sounds like mainstream and I’m not completely comfortable doing that.

There’s a similar, but less serious, internal conflict with another new song: Alienation. Personally I think it’s a home run, but that’s up in the air as far as the overall band is concerned. Not everyone has grabbed a hold of it, yet, but that’s how it goes with some songs.

One of the reasons I’m doing solo shows is to try out new material – and not everything will make the bands set list. I refuse to be limited as a songwriter to just what the band plays, which admittedly has evolved into a particular sound. I’m a songwriter first and foremost and I like a wider range than the band sound might indicate. Lately I’ve written some pretty damn good songs that I expect won’t be incorporated into Weszt, so I’m considering selling them or working with another artist who would play them, possibly a female artist as I believe some of these songs were meant for.

Unfortunately even those songs which the band hopes to add we’ve had little time for. We’re all keeping day jobs at the moment and some of these day jobs bleed into the night and rehearsals haven’t been as frequent as we’d like them to be. I’m on the verge of freaking out, personally, as I really want to get to some more new stuff. While our newest set addition, My Soft August, is new to our audience of today, it’s nearly 10 years old and I can’t get but so pumped about it. I’d at least like to play something more obscure or brand new – but c’est la vie. All in time.