This is the second chapter of the three part trilogy of Iron Will. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy it!
Hearts vs Heads - This was written to be a ballad, however, while producing it up, it became clear that it should be much more upbeat than that. I was lucky enough to get my extremely talented friend, Stacey Wright, to duet on this with me.
Don't Be The Joke - This is a song about being picked on in school. And here's a sentence you may not hear often - I love the shakers on this song! My friend, Josh Kaler, played them (and on Iron Will pt. 2). Check out how they bounce back and forth between the left and right speaker. Also, the banjo was played by the great Stevie Blacke (Beck, Garbage, etc.)
100x16 - This is an older song about insomnia that has been reworked into a more aggressive sound. It's possibly my most "Duran Duran-ish" sounding song to date (wait for the chorus).
Certain - This is possibly my favorite on the album? It's the only song I've written that someone has come up to me at a gig to tell me that they hate because of the lyrics. That makes no sense to me because it's about treating everyone nonjudgementally, especially my LGBTQ friends and family. Religion shouldn't be an excuse to treat others as nonequals. Also, it's about the idea that someone can be 100% certain about the unknown. Which god is right?
Medication - This is also a song about insomnia and sleeping medicine, but it's also about how drugs never lead to a good conclusion. Musically, it's my attempt at a Band on the Run kind of tune with the intro.
Pretense - This song is about looking back at your school days with the perspective of an adult. All that seems important at that time will fade as the truth comes to life through the passage of time. My great friend, Darrell Leven, helped me find the chords for the prechorus and chorus. The baseline I played is influenced by Duran Duran's "The Chauffeur".
Iron Will & the Lessons Learned (pt. 2) - The strings, played by my friends, The Classy Chicks, are AMAZING. Mary Beth, Mandi, and Tiffany are just so darn good. They've played on many of my other songs too. Also, Josh Kaler did great work with the percussion on this one too.
Timothy Tsang, the incredible artist that also did the illustration for Vol 1 of Iron Will, returned to do this cover too. I'm a big fan of his work and I am so lucky that he agreed to turn my ideas into this cool piece of art. This is looking back at Iron Will during his school days. References to each song are all over the cover.
Thank you for sharing your time, ears, hearts, and heads with me! And thank you to my friends who helped me put all this together!
credits
released March 18, 2017
All songs written by Brett Schieber.
Tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, & 7 produced with Josh Kaler.
Track 3 produced with Gavin Fisher.
On this Bandcamp page, you can purchase music from Brett Schieber, including his solo music, Arcanum (Brett & Tree), &
Prankster. You'll find a couple albums he produced for others, as well. Brett's music for Mark D. Pencil & Friends can also be found on Bandcamp by searching for that name. Thank you for your time, ears, & hearts!...more
An almost anti-blues/anti-rock style that masters classic sounds while mocking the industry’s perceived seriousness. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 27, 2018