Minutes, the blistering debut album from Ragged Words favourites Jogging, is available in physical form from today (you could have downloaded it for a fiver from their bandcamp far sooner you know) and to mark the release, jogger Ronan Jackson has given us an exclusive track-by-track guide to the record. For another exclusive, don't forget that we premiered an MP3 from the album, 'Shape Up, Shakedown', last week. The Dublin three-piece launch the album on home soil at Whelans this Sunday.
1. Threadbare
I wrote the music and lyrics for this one. This was one of the last songs to come together but it seemed like such a natural album opener. The whole end section was only added a week or two before recording. Peter had some concerns that it felt like it was starting in to a whole new song midway through but i felt that the themes and chord structures tied it all together. There's certain things that were hinted at earlier in the song that come back in and are fully realized, I'm a big fan of that kind of thing. Same goes for the lyrics, the word 'threadbare' crops up in the first half (to refer to a welcome mat that has been worn out) but the word returns in a different context to illustrate how transparent a situation has become. Quite negative lyrics for a musically positive sounding song. Kinda about feeling you want to get away from absolutely everyone and drink yourself into oblivion but that hopelessness resolves itself before the end.
2. Not Simple
From music and lyrics that Darren wrote. I wrote a separate lyric part that we added independently, we never really confer on these things although there definitely is an inadvertant influence on each other. I love bands like Halo Benders where the 2 singers sound like they're not even aware of each others parts so there is an element of that. This was the opening song we ever played at our first ever gig (months before i even started singing in the band). It was around this time we decided to stick with being a 3-piece so we'd both kinda refined our playing styles and sounds to such an end. This song marks that transition from looking for another guitarist to using the limitations of being a 3-piece to our benefit. The guitar and bass really intertwine and lock in together so there's no space left for other instruments. The lyrics i wrote have a nasty 'i told you so' feel to them, which is not something I'd like to be part of my every day personality so it's good to vent them through a song and leave it at that.
3. Fostered Foes
A song compiled from riffs Darren had come up with, along with parts some improvised rehearsals we'd recorded. This song was constantly changing shape. If it had been recorded one week earlier, it would've been a completely different animal. We trimmed about 2 minutes of music from it right at the last stages before entering the studio, we were very conscious of no song going over the 5 minute mark. The song is so dense that it was hard to find places to sing over, that's why it feels like it has such an extended intro. The lyrics were written in one go one night, it's probably the most bitter song on the album. There's a 32 line rant right in the middle, it doesn't give me much time to stop for breath! A tricky one. If there is indeed a Richter Collective 'sound' then i think this song would be our best demonstration of said sound.
4. Shattered Knees
This is a song i brought to the band, i was apprehensive that it may have been too jangly and chord-y for the Jogging sound. We write a lot of stuff that just doesn't fit with our sound, we're always half-joking about starting a secondary band (with a proper female vocalist who can actually sing!) as an avenue for all this type of poppier material. We managed to bring this one around though, the end part was something the three of us worked on and it really served to tie the whole song together. The last segment takes it to a whole new place as a result of this collaborative effort, combined with a lot of rage and feelings of helplessness, as illustrated in the lyrics! A line used in the previous song ('Good manners cost the upper hand') is repeated in this song, i had always intended to change it but Peter encouraged me not to. It's kind of like a wink or a nod back to its predecessor, which is something the peerless Afghan Whigs used to do on their albums, so if it's good enough for them...
5. Shape Up Shakedown
Another one of Darren's. It took a while to find its feet because it's quite mid-paced but now it's one of our favourites. I think it works because Darren's lyrics and delivery have a lot of personality and conviction. I added some lyrics and vocals in the middle when the song kinda 'breaks out', sort of dealing with how imposing limitations on yourself can be oddly freeing. I try to be cautious about shouting all over Darren's songs, we try not to overcrowd any song unnecessarily. It does include an impromptu drunken holler near the end which we were unsure about leaving in because it sounds a bit Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but it felt like too much fakery to remove it. There's definitely a nod or two to The Van Pelt on this song, they're a hugely underrated band and have definitely been a big influence on us.
6. Bruises Like Bow-Ties
This song is intended to be the opening track of Side 2 (just as Shape Up is intended to be the closer of Side 1). It's probably the oldest song on the album, from riffs i'd written about four years ago. It was a sort of 90s-era Blonde Redhead type riff that we built up and then deconstructed at a few different points in the song. Some of the more self-deprecating lyrics were definitely influenced by the last few Why? albums, even if the delivery is less deadpan and more overwrought. I love Peter's beat on this song, it is really propulsive but still retains a sort of '60s classiness, just from the way it is punctuated with those big singular floor tom hits. Very happy with the structure of this song, it might seem rather contrived but it all came together really naturally.
7. Cleft Chin, Good Heart
Built up from this amazing heavy fingertapping riff that Darren used to play in practice, the lyrics were made up on the spot at one of our very first gigs. It's definitely the least personal and most nonsensical song on the album. I went back to change the lyrics to imbue some meaning, but none of the 'proper' lyrics worked as well phonetically as those initial primal instinctive ones! The title is taken from that Sam Peckinpah film 'The Killer Elite'. I was determined to have this song on the album, it's our shortest song at barely 2 minutes but it propels the record along nicely. Our engineer James Eager (of Divisions Ruin) encouraged me to make the bassline less fussy and more direct and i think it works much better. He and Eoin Whitfield (his co-engineer, from the band Enemies) mostly concentrated on the sonics and left the music up to us, but that was one instance where they had a hand in subtly changing the song. Amazing lads.
8. Lifeline
Another song built around some great riffs and fingertapping lines that Darren had come up with. Before Jogging I used to always try play high melodic basslines to serve as a counterpoint to what the other instruments were doing, but when Jogging decided to remain a 3 piece i changed my playing style to this lower heavier dirtier sound, it was really necessary to anchor songs like this. Darren wrote all the lyrics and I just added 2 lines at the end, i tried to deliver them in a Dee Kessler (Thee More Shallows) inspired style but it's just my own bastardized version of that! There's very few overdubs on this album but this particular song has some lovely looped guitar ambience way in the background just to fill it out when the bass and drums drop out. I love playing this song live.
9. Heartwood
Another one of the older songs. I think we auditioned about 14 singers while trying to form this band, so all 14 of them would be very familiar with my riffs from this song. It was a long road before myself and Darren stepped up to the plate and decided to take on vocal responsibility in order to keep the band alive. I've been playing in bands for 10 years and singing is not something i ever wanted to do. This is one where myself and Darren equally share vocal duties, which is something I'd really like to do more of in the future, just that back and forth kind of stuff. It was also the first one where we shared ideas about lyrics, which were mostly about stilted progress, filtered through images of puppydogs' tails and hat-racked trees. Very happy with how huge and forceful the song sounds by the end, i'd like to (wishfully) think there's a bit of a Rocket From The Crypt buzz off it.
10. Curtains
We've still yet to play this song live. I always just had it in my head as the closing song for the album, thematically it just tied a lot of things up for me. A lot of the lyrics on the album are about self-doubt and procrastination, and this all tied in with the album title Minutes. Just about how time is constantly passing and how many minutes are wasted thinking about past minutes or wishing future minutes would pass by. The title Minutes also doubled because this album is a true document of our first year (2009) as an active band. We were determined to get an album out within a year, there was no way we were ever going to wait three or four years. So in those terms it really is Jogging's minutes of the year 2009. I'd had this kind of glide-y sounding Sea & Cake type riff that the song centres around but the end product ended up miles away from that. I added a lot of backing vocal ideas just at the last minute and some of them stuck, one of which was hugely influenced by Roy Duffy of Squarehead (who we'd done some rehearsing with when we were looking for a singer). I'm also glad the album ends on a note of positivity after its share of negativity and doubt throughout. Everything's gonna be alright!
