Seven years is a long time. We at the Fuglees feel that the result of that wait, our third album, “F-Bomb,” was worth it, but we’re heavily biased, so we’ll leave to you the task of judging the quality.   

      Song-writing in the Fuglees is a continuous process, and after “Indiana” was finished, we kept working on new stuff every time we rehearsed. Our success in a series of contests had given us a big boost and we were eager to keep up the pace. Andy had completed his move New Mexico, so we focused getting as much done with the time we had during his visits from his new place. Every time we got together, more material would show up and we would crank a song or two to throw on the pile. We probably forgot a chunk of what we wrote, but it most of the good stuff hung around long enough to be remembered and captured in some form to be considered for selection.

       Our process is pretty consistent in terms of what happens most of the time; I’ll start messing around with a guitar part, and if Andy likes it, he’ll look up at the neck of my guitar to see what I’m playing in and join in. The parts both of us are playing will evolve over time, but usually what we start with will be close to the finished part. As soon as we settle into a groove, Tom finds a beat, and our little vehicle coughs to life. Most of the time we start with a verse and move to the chorus, which Andy can usually find, at least in basic form, after a couple if tries. Sometimes this fails and we’ll just drop and revisit later, especially if the idea haunts one of us enough while we’re away from rehearsal. Once the prototype has two parts, a verse and a chorus, we’ll run through it several times, tweaking as we go. Tom, Andy and I came up playing almost an identical song list in various cover bands during the 80s, and our influences are very similar, so it’s easy for us to find common ground when it comes to finalizing arrangements and making choices about the color and shape of the songs.

        After the basic form of the song is done, we usually run it a few more times and return to it once someone (usually Andy) finishes the lyrics. At that point, we’ll add whatever we think it needs— maybe a special break the provides a little relief from the rest of the song, commonly called a “middle eight” – or some kind of feature near the ending to distinguish the piece. We usually keep the songs short (under three minutes) and simple, with two notable exceptions being “Masterplan” and “Dandelion” the new record. Both of these songs feature extra bits that give them a slightly more complex feel.

        Most of the songs written by the Fuglees were composed in this way. Occasionally a band member will come with a complete tune for the band to learn, but probably two-thirds of our material was written like this. We wound up with around fifty songs to choose from, and the twelve best wound up on “F-Bomb”. We began recording in January 2008 and post-production (mix-down and mastering) in early 2009, happy to again call on Andy Van Dette at Masterdisc for mastering. Again, we think the results are good, but we probably like ourselves a little too much, so let us know in the comments how you feel about our new baby, F-Bomb.