Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
They never stop. They never will. In February, Frog released 1000 Variations on the Same Song. Last month, they released the followup. It’s called The Count, but please don’t confuse it with their 2019 album Count Bateman. As is tradition, we had frontman Daniel Bateman break down his new LP for us a bit, giving a little background on each of the ten songs on The Count.
Of the album itself, he says, “I was working very long hours during this entire time so I tried to have the most fun I could when I got to the studio. Probably 60% of the record is improvised on the spot. Some of these songs are really fucking good though.” Scroll down to see his thoughts on each song.
“BITTEN BY MY LOVE VAR. XI”
This was originally written because a friend of mine was writing a vampire movie and she said that I could make the soundtrack. The movie never happened, so I just released it here. There’s a bunch of different versions of this one that are all various degrees of unhinged Bateman; believe it or not, this was the most presentable one.
“SAX-A-MA-PHONE VAR. XII”
I love the Simpsons, I love Carole King, I love Prince, this is some amalgamation of all of that. The second verse is stolen from a different song that I was working on – hopefully that will come out on the next one, but who knows. Most of this music is about romance. I feel that there are really only two events in all art – sex, which is the creation act of life, and murder, which is the creation act of death. Anything else that you’re dealing with is just a proxy for those two things.
“GIRL WITH A PROBLEM VAR. XIII”
I think this was the first song we did, way before all the others. Elvis Costello has a song about a boy with a problem, so I thought I’d try a girl. The entire time we were making this album the tape machine and my preamps were both in the process of breaking and becoming unusable, and you can definitely hear it on this one lol. During one or two parts in the chorus the vocal preamp breaks up, and it just generally sounds pretty noisy. Originally, I wanted Cam’ron to do a feature on the end of the song, and so I wrote something for him – that’s why I say, “My name is Cam this is the last chorus.” My favorite part is the very end when you can just hear Steve start to do his Cam’ron verse – Steve is my favorite artist.
“COME COME COME VAR. XIV”
100% of this song is me. Steve lives in Chelsea and I live in New Rochelle, so if he doesn’t come to the session I just see if I can still play drums. This causes a lot of consternation in him, but I feel that it keeps him on his toes.
“SPANISH ARMADA VAR. XV”
This is my wife Kelly’s favorite song; she always likes the ones in 3/4. I wrote a song in 3/4 for her in college called “Indian Summer” that might have impressed her enough to go on a date with me – maybe I’ll release it someday. The verse and choruses of this one are sorta like a Blue Valentine thing, where the end of a relationship and the beginning of the relationship are put right up against each other.
“BARUCH ATTA (IN THE MIDDLE SONG) VAR. XVI”
I love this one. The original line in the first verse was “slumped over a microphone” instead of “talking ‘bout a microphone,” but I am wont to do both, so I kept it. The first verse is the first take we did, and for whatever reason I accidentally turned the tape machine off right before the second verse starts. It sounded pretty cool that way though! So we kept it, and slotted in a different take for the rest of the song. The universe is always giving you gifts if you just let it show you how beautiful it is.
“MARIAH VAR. XVII”
I basically wrote this song on stage in Los Angeles, there’s a video of the set on Youtube. It’s sort of a reprise to “Baruch Atta,” but this time I try to have more fun with it. My favorite part is the last verse. This is a good example of me stealing ideas from Mozart and putting them places they’re not supposed to be, one of my favorite pastimes.
“CHELSEA PIERS VAR. XVIII”
I had the “Chelsea Piers” part written before this, but everything after that is improvised, words and music. Steve insisted this be on the record, possibly because he lives next to it. The tape machine had broken completely by this point so this one is digital. A big percentage of Frog is me trying to make Steve laugh and then releasing the results if I succeed.
“CAROLINE VAR. XIX”
Kelly had an idea that this would be the first song on the record, and it would sort of be the framing story that would set up the other songs: “Places people, take your seats folks, a man’s about to whine about things lost in time.” I loved this idea, but Steve talked me out of it. Steve’s one piece of feedback was that I had to say “the bar on 29” because he used to love this bar on 29th St called Billy Mark’s. RIP 🙁
“WITH ANOTHER GUY VAR. XX”
My favorite song on the record. I only had the part that goes “With another guy you have found me” written before we started playing this take, the rest just happened as you hear it. When you’re improvising or writing, you have to let God into the room and let the song play out wherever it’s gonna go.
The Count is out now.
––
Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
The Alternative is ad-free and 100% supported by our readers. If you’d like to help us produce more content and promote more great new music, please consider donating to our Patreon page, which also allows you to receive sweet perks like free albums and The Alternative merch. And if you want The Alternative delivered straight to your inbox every month, sign up for our free newsletter. Either way, thanks for reading!