The United Dictators Of Mars - SONG

Heavy Dreams

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Music: Mody, Words: Harris

Drifting across the wavy sands. In the twilight of the moment. Leaving all thoughts you have behind. Now falling ever deeper.

As sure as dark surrounds me, the light just fills my mind. Taking over my life functions, as I close my eyes are swollen shut. The cold lays at my feet. As I feel the wind pass through me, still my body lies. All alone I hear the souls in the distance screaming my name.

Down in the bottom of a pit. Lost inside the bedroom jungle. All time has lost it's meaning. Now you've become the trip.

Heavy Dreams was written and recorded from the '94 Archivon demos and to me this was going to be a great song recorded properly for the new album. One of the highlights in my mind. So in mid 2006 I recorded all the music and Jeff came and did the vocals a few months later and I thought it sounded great unmastered and we moved on to other songs. About a year later when most of the songs had been written I started to do some mastering on the song and it sounded like shit outside the studio- just awful. I had a an acquaintance, Mike Sepello, come over and give it a try and he really showed me alot of the error of my ways but still it wasn't good. I must have done 100 mixes of the song and it then became known as "Heavy F**KING Dreams". I then spent odd time over the months re-recording guitars & bass and it was actually getting worse not better. By then Jeff was so over the old '94 songs but towards the end of this project I felt like I had the right mastering software for me (Isotopes Ozone 3) and the right mix and since then Jeff was singing out in a weekend band which was making his voice a lot stronger and I convinced him to then re-do his vocals. He loathed that idea but did it and it was obvious his heart wasn't into it. It didn't capture for me the "little" nuances I look for and what I thought was going to be the 2nd song on the album may not even make the cut. We had recorded an acoustic song (Towers) that will be on the next CD so he made some passing reference that I should record an acoustic version of Heavy Dreams. I nodded him off with a smirk since he had other snide remarks about the '94 songs and as soon as he was out the door the acoustic hit my hands. Minor adjustments were made to scale down the drum arrangements as well. The following week this groovy piece was presented with another smirk and my middle finger "in spirit" up his arse. Obviously he was thrilled to get new life from this song but he couldn't figure out the vocal approach at first so we left it for a time and came back to it. He approached it with more of that Tantric or Alice in Chains nasal voice and though it's a bit of a cop off that singing style it works and he had fun doing his interpretation of that style. What I love about the song is that just when it seems out of place in the mix of all the other songs I kept the original power lead sections in the middle and end of the song so it's an original contrast of gritty acoustic and crushing lead work. I would be remiss if I didn't give total props to Archivon guitarist Todd Hensley who wrote and played the lead guitar solos on the '94 version. I recreated about 75% of his solos (the parts I liked!) for this as they in my mind should be indelibly stamped to the overall arrangement. And a bitch to learn and execute with feel.

THANK GOD for acoustic guitar!! I was so sick of recording the original version of this song that I wanted to vomit just driving to the studio knowing we were going to be working on it. I would arrive and be so not into it that I was just uncooperative and struggling to get through the sessions. The fact that Tom could not get a guitar mix that he liked paired with his numerous re-recording the entire song which left me re-recording my parts made me feel like there was no end in sight. I don’t know if I ever told this to Tom but there was a point where I almost decided to not come to the studio for quite some time... take some time off from it. Thankfully, Tom found ways to keep my interest, whether it was shelve the song for a while or make video segments or play a new piece for me. Whatever it was, it kept my interest. When it finally came time to re-record and complete it, I struggled through it and got it behind me. Then, one day, I think he said something mortifying like we might have to redo it or something. This was after we had recorded the acoustic piece Towers, which I was very excited about and in love with the idea. So from the hip I belted out something about adapting HD to an acoustic piece. I knew it wouldn't be well received and kind of said it tongue in cheek. So of course, I come back a week later and Tom, in his way, said he had something special for me to review. When I arrived to the studio, Tom didn't even give me a clue but proceeded to have me review a song.

WOW!!

I about dropped to my knees and thanked GOD for the gift that my ears were experiencing. It was an acoustic version of Heavy Dreams which I now refer to as HDA (Heavy Dreams Acoustic). It took a while for me to "find" the right melody for the song but I knew what I wanted in my head. So I listened to some of my influential musical for inspirational ideas. Finally, I hit the right combination. I knew I wanted to sing in a key that would be suitable to the "twang" of the music and there's where what Tom describes as Tantric influence. But there was something else out there. A friend and colleague of mine hit the nail on the head as I played the song for him. He said Days of the New. "That's it!!" I belted in excitement. And there you have it. It was easy pie from there with a little bit of changeup in vocal arrangement and melody from the original version. As I go back and review the "electric" version, I actually have a new found like for it and may not have, had we not revamped. It's cool having two versions on the compilation. In the liner notes to That's Life, I gave reference to this version of the song just for those of you reading who may be wondering about it. What a fun song to record and sing!

Toms Rebuttle: Though Jeff never led me on the he DIDN'T want to come down I certainly went through periods where not getting a sound or mix of what you want can sour you on the whole process and he probably brought that karama to the studio because it wasn't fun remixing HD a hundred times then knowing he wasn't going to give it his all. We can manage this because we're just 2 guys that know each other well but imagine being in a band with 4 or 5 guys and having one or two of us at different times going through that and always having some negative karma from someone, sometimes it being yourself. Being in a band is a bitch of a ride.

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