What can I say about a love song describing the relationship between a man and a blow up doll? A lot. This song took us so long to write, record and produce. It was the longest we've ever worked on a song before. Hell Street took us a few weeks from start to finish but Inflatable Love took us a couple of months to do! It took us so long just to finish the song that I wondered if we would get it done for release on Valentines Day! Quite frankly, I wasn't sure if we were going to finish it at all!
It was a long road to the finish line but it was a road I'm glad we took. The finished product speaks for itself. It's good. It's damn good, if I don't say so myself!
The song started off as a couple of riffs Chad was jamming on. We all liked the sound of it so we jammed on it for a bit. It was simple, it was easy and it was catchy (kind of like a venereal disease)!
After we wrapped Satanic Seagull, we started working on the song that would eventually be titled 'Inflatable Love'. We wrote the music rather quickly but didn't bother with the lyrics until the end. Once we knew the structure of the song, we recorded the bed tracks in a few sessions.
While we were recording the song, Chad began working on a guitar solo for the final chorus. It took us a whole session to record that because we were focused on getting everything right. You might notice I didn't use the word 'perfect' in the last sentence. I chose my words very carefully. We were not focused on perfection but instead we focused on getting the song right. Chad's guitar solo kicked ass! The style reminded me of Chuck Berry, which I thought gave the song more "flavor".
We spent more time trying to get the right sound for the song than we had on any other song we worked on and I believe we got it right! We wanted the song to have a punk rock feel like something the Clash or the Tubes or even Nirvana in the early days might have played and add a little Government Cheeze to the mix!
The only thing left to do at that point was write the lyrics. Easy, right? You might think so but it wasn't. We figured if we spent that much time getting the song right, then we should do the same with the lyrics. Again, we focused on getting it right, not perfect, but right.
Writing the lyrics was a long and bumpy road. The song was almost called 'The Shocker' and included the lines "Two in the pink/One in the stink"! However, Chad found that a little too shocking. His vision for the song was "less crass and more class". I'm glad we decided to go in a different direction.
As a group, we couldn't decide what the concept of the song should be. We brainstormed many different ideas but none of them stuck. I suggested calling the song 'Inflatable Love' and make the song about a blow up doll. Why not? It sounds like something we would sing about.
A title was all I brought to the table. I had no ideas beyond that. We were in between sessions and Bubba texted me song lyrics he came up with. It went something like this:
"Got my girl
She comes in a box
She's my favorite kind
because she never talks!"
When I read it, I knew we had our first verse! It was a jumping off point. Over the course of an afternoon, Bubba and I had a rough draft of the song, minus the last verse. I showed TJ the rough draft and he added some stuff. Finally we brought it to Chad, who was also coming up with some ideas of his own. Then we all worked together on the final draft. Hell, we were still changing lines as we recorded it! Again, we were focused on getting it right.
Personally, I'm glad we worked as hard as we did on 'Inflatable Love'. I'm glad we focused on getting it right. It was very much a team effort. Everybody contributed and made the song what it is. It's my favorite project we've worked on thus far!
My favorite lines from the song are:
"Some don't condone
a relationship with rubber
I don't care what they think
She's my inflatable lover!"
Anyway, I hope all of the Cheeze-Heads enjoy our latest song. It's going to be released on VD, February 14th, 2014! Hopefully we'll get the video done next month! Enjoy!
