Relationships are full of challenges and championships. This is the idea behind the album from Amaranth Road. The album tells the story of a relationship from start to finish. It includes personal perspectives, outsiders views and even the humorous side of overcoming challenges together.
Andrea Desjarlais and Malcolm Paterson, the heart and soul of Amaranth Road, respectively, share their insights about how the album was conceived.
Where Did You Glean the Ideas for the Album “Love Lies Bleeding“?
M: The original idea for the album was to follow a relationship from start to finish, telling a story of a young couple and encompassing a wide range of emotions. Some of the song ideas were derived from our present and past dating experiences, as well as some of our friends’ experiences that we have witnessed. Other ideas were either made up, or were things that we had thought of doing, but had never actually done.
A: It can often be difficult to come up with song ideas and we thought that having a theme for the album would help to focus our writing. The songs I had already written were, like much teenaged writing, about love. We didn't, however, want to succumb to cliches and write a whole album of sappy love songs or depressing break-up songs. Instead we decided to write songs that traced a relationship from it's beginning to end and also incorporated multiple perspectives.
One of the songs is written from the perspective of a mother watching her child flounder in a bad relationship. Once we had this frame in place we tried to write pieces that addressed some less common aspects of love's difficulties. We combed through our own past relationship experience to spark ideas and then spent many enjoyable afternoons walking around our neighborhood, developing our characters, and imagining what might happen over the course of their relationship.
We have our couple move from their goofy meeting in a grocery store, to creepy obsession, to sweetness and compassion, to doubt, anger and eventually destruction. Thankfully this album is not closely modeled on our own relationship! Though some of the happier songs are definitely drawn from the experience of growing together and learning how to be a team.
Also, the title of the album “Love-Lies-Bleeding“ came from a discovery that there is a variety of real-world Amaranth called Love-Lies-Bleeding. This was clearly perfect since our album is about the eventual destruction of a relationship.
What is Your Favorite Song on the Album? Why?
M: Ever after. This song developed from a guitar part that I wrote years ago, and really liked, but hadn’t done anything with. Andrea heard it and immediately wanted to use it for the album. I find the form of the song interesting because the chord progression in the verse is descending while the descant also continually descends creating a feeling of disintegration. Andrea did a great job of building on this feeling with a song about the chaotic unraveling of a relationship. I feel that this is our most dynamic song. Andrea would say that I chose it because I don’t like happy music. There may be some truth to that.
A: My favorite is probably Stainless, though it's a bit hard to pick. Stainless was one of the first songs that Malcolm and I fully collaborated on after revising a few of my old compositions. The song is meant to contrast the typical scenario where one person in a relationship tries to get the other person to change. This song is about changing yourself so that someone will love you more and find you perfect. It has a trance-like quality that reinforces the creepiness inherent in the lyrics and the success we had writing it together really solidified our resolve to do an entire album. I think it's one of our best songs musically and lyrically though it tends to get overlooked because it's quiet and complex--probably one of the songs that is furthest from pop music.
Do You Ever Have Conflicting Ideas of the Direction a Folk Song Should Go?
A: Since Malcolm and I have very different talents (I did most of the lyric writing and melody composition while Malcolm produced the chord structures and did all the refinement in the recording process) we didn't have much conflict in the direction of songs. Which isn't to say that conflict didn't arise. Malcolm is an extremely dedicated and focused person whereas I'm a bit more eclectic and am likely to change my interests daily. Malcolm occasionally became frustrated when I wanted to knit instead of work on music things, or read, or write short stories, or make polymer clay sculptures, or dye wax relief Ukrainian Easter eggs, or make paper plate turkeys. I saw the project as something casual but Malcolm turned out to be a bit intense when it came to finishing songs and getting them polished. The differences in our approach to the project definitely caused some strife, but in the end I was glad for his incredible focus. We never would have finished the album if it was up to me!
M: Surprisingly there was not too much conflict in the direction the songs went. We did critique each others work, and some conflict arose, but it was mostly in the details. For example, I tend to be a bit of a slave driver in terms of rehearsing the songs many times before recording them. During these rehearsals I acquired the nickname “the Timing Nazi” in reference to the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.
The album, Love Lies Bleeding is available for download or a complete CD can be ordered by emailing Amaranth Road at amaranthroad@gmail.com.
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