DOWNLOAD

DONATE (Featured Charity = New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation)

Story Behind the Song = "The Station Fire"

This week's dispatch comes from the newest member of the JSS family, Paul Apelgren.

The Station Fire is the first song from what I like to call the Burnt Hymnal sessions. Burnt Hymnal was a working title for the album on which I was continuously working and had already enlisted with Walt, Jon, and Danny to record on the project during the summer of 2011. Once I became part of JSS and the Perennials project, however, it made a ton of sense bring these into the JSS fold and collaborate further.

The title comes from the horrible fire that burned in Los Angeles County August 26th - October 16th, 2009. It was one of the worst fires the region had seen for some time, burning over 160,000 acres, destroying homes, decimating beautiful recreation areas, and killing two firefighters. You could see the fires rage on the distant ridges all the way from my apartment rooftop in Koreatown. Plumes of smoke hovered over the San Gabriel mountains that went up at least a mile into the sky.

The Station Fire, 2009, Los Angeles, as seen from Koreatown, Hobart and 4th

The song uses the fire as a jumping off point. Its a metaphor for all the problems we face and how they can wash over us if we aren't careful. Despite the heavy subject, the tune was great fun to work on and I think we are all proud of how it turned out.

A couple thanks are in order. My friend Justin Lebanowski helped write some of the lyrics to this song. Also, my friends Alex Levy and Warren Brown are guest audio engineers on this track. Alex's company Epilogue Audio made a mix for us that really elevates the tune more than I could have imagined.

- Paul

PS - It should be noted that Paul, Walt, and Jonny went to college together and this is not their first collaboration… This is :)