I've just listened back and jotted down what was said.
It came up because Jon was asked about "instinct and feeling" because he was supposed to be on tour this summer and instead was in quarantine...and he immediately pivoted and moved fast to release a new song "Do What You Can" and if he could talk about what that was like, what inspired you and what that process was like:
Jon:
I was meant to release the bands 17th album which was called 2020 and it’s a topical record, there’s so much to write about these days. It was completed and it was ready for release on 15th May. When the pandemic hit the record had already been finished and was in the proverbial can. This pandemic hits and I was at a place called the JBJ Soul Kitchen, which is one of our 3 restaurants where we serve an in need customer and a paying customer and created a model in community dining, but as I was washing dishes, a position which I hold with great esteem, my wife snapped a picture and she wanted to let the public know that we were open for takeaways, so she asked if we could put the picture up and asked what I think the caption should be, and I said “if you can’t do what you do you do what you can”…and I walked away not thinking anything of what I’d just said, but as marketeers can appreciate, a fellow marketeer, you know where’s that next thing, goes here’s a bumper sticker, ya know, there’s a song title, and so I started to write that song and I had some fun with it. I’d written the song in its entirety but I was also able to step back and realise that we as a planet were going through something together at the same time, so via the zoom, you know the World of technology, I put it out there and say “write me a verse, anyone who can write me some poetry, some prose, send it, and if I get my hands on it I can try and put the melody to it and we can all share this common experience, so it was fun to get that kind of input, and then I’ve recorded the song since with the band, proper, you know the way I wrote it. It’ll be on the record. How can you write a topical record and not have something about COVID and infact the George Floyd incident.
Jon was then asked if he was able to crowd source to incorporate but cut back in:
No, I mean not in the final, erm, as I said I had already written the song in its entirety but with the public I shared the chorus and the first verse to give them the melody and the idea and said lets crowd source. Truth is I didn’t really want 6,000 co-writers on the song [Laughs].
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Let The Dreamers Dream
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06-29-2020, 04:13 PM
