SANOMA

Left to Right - Nick, Cory, Nate, Luke

Drakes

Drakes was inspired by two surf trips to the Hollister Ranch on the central coast of California.  Privately owned, this spot is coveted by surfers around the world, and many pay a lot of money to have the chance to surf here.  I remember crawling into the back of a faded grey 4-runner packed with surf gear.  Grey-bearded and wearing drug store sunglasses and tattered shorts and t-shirt, my dad’s friend Chris picked us up from my parents’ house.  We loaded up the boards and drove the 101 to the winding road that led to the gated entrance.  Chris stopped to report he was bringing visitors and we all checked in. He bought a small plot of land years ago solely for the surfing rights.  Many surfers did the same.  He told us stories about what it was like before very many people knew about it.  Land was a lot cheaper, and it was a little more rugged of an experience to get there.  We drove more winding road and out onto the beach in the surf buggy, and we ended up just a few feet away from the surf.  As the afternoon sun sank towards the horizon, we, along with the pelicans and the seals, were the only ones out. The break we surfed was called “Little Drakes”.  I used this same name for the song at first.  As it continued to take shape, I thought “Drakes” sounded better.

Drake is another word for dragon.  I didn’t know this when I wrote the song, but I think it was meant to be.   The mood and energy of the song can be likened to the brooding, scaly, fire-breathing creature.  The explosion of the 6/8 sections of the song highlight a Hammond organ melody line reminiscent of early British Invasion keys sections of the Animals and Kinks. Also distinctly British, the image of a Hobbit frantically dodging dragon fire on a mountain of gold is a fitting one.

For me, my dad and Chris, it wasn’t gold we were hoarding, it was the waves and the good times spent together in a beautiful setting experiencing God’s gift of the ocean.  Rather than causing us to shut off the world and become callous and scaly, we experienced and shared the goodness of this world.  In doing this, we became more human rather than more like Smaug, Eustace and other dragons we find in our favorite books. “Drakes” subverts the dragon as a character while keeping the ominous imagery and vibe.  It’s all-out rock & roll when we play it live, and I think we captured this same explosive energy on tape.

Great Whites

I have always thought sharks were scary.  I remember as a kid getting an intensely ominous feeling whenever I watched the sharks lazily lurk in the tank at the aquarium.  I would imagine being in the tank and recall documentaries that showed sharks thrashing, swarming and snapping in reaction to blood or attacking the camera cages.  Hammerheads are creepy looking, but great whites are enormous and have no rival.  They can reach 5,000 lbs and grow to nearly the length of a school bus.  When they choose to attack, whatever they zero in on is doomed.  I also heard stories of sharks attacking surfers.  When my wife and I were on our honeymoon, a great white fatally attacked a swimmer at a nearby beach.  She still reminds me that I went surfing the next day.

These sharks lurk in dark, cold water, circling and stalking prey.  They wait for the vulnerable and attack blindside.  Dead, black eyes, and gaping razor-toothed mouths show no emotion.  The great white has the sole purpose of self-preservation.  Many have skin and fins marred by fights with other sharks.  No matter how injured, the countenance of a great white does not change.  They are cold creatures of the deep sea, and no work of fiction could create a more foreboding, ghostly, and underworldly image.

Acts of cruelty and abominable perversion litter the news daily and make me ask why.  Why do such wicked things exist?  People can be so set on self-preservation that, like predators of the deep, they are given completely over to a callous heart consumed by self.  Whatever their senses tell them to do, they obey, and an evil idolatry forms and leads to unthinkable pain for others and eventually for themselves.  This has been the vicious cycle of sin in the world. 

It may take a while, but people reap what they sow.  God’s sun shines into the darkest places and will expose the secrets of the human heart.  Only grace can intervene and cause someone to honestly seek forgiveness and truly change us and pardon each wrongdoing we’ve done so we can live in peace.  Jesus’ death on the cross secured forgiveness for those who will seek it. 

At first, I shied away from these lyrics.  I have never liked songs that sound like they vaguely accuse.  At first listen, it might seem that Great Whites does just that, but I’m learning to live with the tension  knowing that it isn’t accusatory, but rather meant express my processing the immense evil that confronts each person on earth.  There aren’t easy answers, but in the midst of pain caused by evil Jesus’ cross and the grace he secured offers hope in forgiveness and perfect justice.  He has suffered for us and suffers with us when evil seems to overcome.  In his grace, victims are healed, criminals are pardoned and seek restoration.  Redemption is an unstoppable process in the lives of those who love God no matter where they have been.  

This song has been well received.  A music writer in Greece deemed it the best unknown song of 2012.  The spaghetti western riff evokes lonely wastes, deserts or sea floors.  The drums are steady and create a shoegazer hypnosis as the guitars increase in noisy, frenetic energy.  The Wurlitzer adds dark texture throughout.   This is the backdrop for considering the themes of evil, grace, redemption, healing and judgement.

Davy Jones's Locker

Davy Jones’s Locker is the place of the dead at the bottom of the sea in pirate mythology.  The opening guitar riff is one of my favorites in the Sanoma set.  It has a surf quality, but is also really dark and foreboding.  I get the image of pirates ready to board another ship, cannons, blasting, sailors yelling in aggression and terror.   I wrote this riff during a snowstorm.  I’m a fan of rock & roll – surf, British invasion, early punk and the early fist-pumping proto-metal of Zeppelin, AC/DC, Motorhead, and Sabbath.  I think the opening riff gives away my love for the last genre. 

I am fascinated with the way humans explain life after death.  Like the sea, death can be dark, mysterious and fearful.  I used the mythology of Davy Jones’s Locker as a metaphor for heaven and hell.  Davy Jones was known as “sailor’s devil”, and the Locker cast fear into the hearts of sailors. The life of a pirate was cut-throat – full of debauchery, murder, theft, and cheating.  I imagine these sailors feared retribution for their sordid lives. 

I think most people grapple with a similar fear, and with the mystery of death.  We’ve heard stories about bright lights, encounters with God, and we’ve read in Dante and the New Testament about the terrors of hell and the paradise of heaven.  In my mind, this is fantastic subject matter for this kind of rock & roll.

Rock & Roll Sages

Nigel does his research

El Capitan

El Capitan is a surf spot not too far from Santa Barbara, CA.  This region and NW Washington are my favorite places.  My family lives near this stretch of coast and I have many good memories of surfing, barbecues, wine tasting in the countryside and time spent at the beach and zoo with my wife, kids, parents, brother and sister-in-law.  I remember when my daughters first ventured in the ocean and built sand castles, my wife caught her first wave, and all of us enjoying the presence of pelicans, seals, sand pipers, and each other.

The name El Capitan evokes seafaring imagery that I think is perfect for this song - captain of a Spanish pirate ship.  One of Sanoma’s themes is the era of seafaring pirates and this period in history carries with it Spanish sub themes that also surface in the harmonic minor scales of much surf music.  I have images of abandoned church buildings, Spanish missions and graveyards, the open sea with ships looming on the horizon, and a ragged crew that has sailed from the Spanish Main in search of treasure.  This imagery is mixed with great surfing memories to inspire an all-out rock & roll song that really kicks ass live.  I love the recording, too.  The guitar tone is like a bad wipe out on a skateboard or a surfer getting sucked over the falls and smacking water.

My personality is a mixture of, among other things, my experiences and these images and memories, and I express my life through the rock & roll music that I love, and now through writing with words about the songs that I write on the Telecaster cranked through a Fender Vibro-King.  The theme of a captain reminds me that I don’t control these things, but they are gifts from God.  I’m not the captain of my own destiny, but a good God gives me great people, abilities, locations, inspiration, and many other things that I love.  There are opportunities that are meant to take.  Life is meant to be lived to the fullest.  All this is a gift from the King of the heavens, sea and earth.  This song reminds me of that.

Westport

Westport is a song inspired by a Washington surf spot west of Olympia.  I used to drive from Bellingham and sleep in the bed of my pickup truck that I parked on the beach.  Once, the truck got stuck and we needed to head back that night.  We tried everything to get the truck out of the sand but ended up needing to call a tow truck.  About an hour later, we saw headlights bobbing through the misty, windy darkness.  We waived down the rickety tow truck and out stumbled the wiry, mustached driver in a tank top with cigarette hanging out of mouth.  It didn’t take us long to see that this guy had been drinking – a lot -before we called him.  My friend said the T.V. was blaring on the other end of the line when he called.  I imagined one of the many single-wide trailers, ash tray, cheap food and beer.  We didn’t have far to drive with him before we made it to the road and got out of dodge for the night, but not forever.

Westport is dark, often shrouded in cold coastal fog, with some of the heaviest rainfall in the state.  The wind often whips off of the coast at high speeds.  Once a fishing industry town, much of the commerce has gone belly up, leaving the flickering fluorescent lights in bar windows and drunken tales of a life at sea.  Surfers drive in from all around, drink a lot, camp, and leave.  A few stay and work at the grocery store.  There was a time when I wanted to do just that in order to dedicate more time to surfing.  The town is run down in a haunted kind of way and the signs of vice are evident in gas stations and defunct businesses now abandoned. 

I remember catching my first lengthy ride at the Westport jetty as the sun was sinking and it was rapidly becoming dark.  My friend Edwin was paddling out and got to see it.  I was riding a 70’s Owl board that had belonged to my dad.  I remember the camp fire, shivering as I got out of my wetsuit, and smoking a pipe on the beach after surfing.  There was also an incredible sunset right before I caught the wave.

Westport holds a place in my heart.  It is a surf ghost town.  I think I will continue to be drawn to it for the rest of my life.  These are a few of the stories and images behind the song.

Welcome!

Thanks, everyone, for visiting the blog for the band SANOMA.  The goal is to share some of the influences and stories that go along with the songs and being in a band.   We hope you enjoy.