The interesting thing about AWOL is that it was not what I expected going into the recording process. I had finished a whole double sided album in my studios at the Farm ( blind thief farm ) and it was more of a 1960’s psychedelic thing… some of you heard those demos on my soundcloud, and then I took them down in a hurry because they were REALLY rough. All that to say, when I met Kieran Kelly, I had no idea we would be on the same wavelength when it came to making music and I quickly realized he was just as big of a Smiths fan as I ….. We began the writing process of Half Of The Better One with Kieran’s guitar chords and ideas… this was probably the fastest song written on the album.. I created the melodies and lyrics almost immediately… it helps when the guitar arrangements are so perfect. We had this song written a bit before my 50th birthday party and at the time I had just booked a Smiths cover band to play the event… They were called ‘Sons and Heirs’ from NYC and they put on a great performance of my favorite Morrissey And Smiths catalogue… but around the same time, I found out that Kieran had a friend who had a friend that had been able to get Andy Rourke of The Smiths to play on a couple of tracks… we then put the invitation out to Andy, and believe it or not he ACCEPTED!!!…. Kieran became my hero at that moment, but we had no idea how the sessions would go. The evening we hired Andy Rourke in for the sessions, we were finishing up 3 songs- Melissa, Yeshua & Half Of The Better One….. upon playing Half, Andy remarked that it was a bit like a Smiths song and started playing the riff to Bigmouth Strikes Again in the studio to see how closely they were in notation….. Kieran and I were losing it inside…. hahah… After the sessions (which went brilliantly ) I came back to the Buddy Project Studio in Queens and put down the vocals…. Kieran was a little apprehensive at the way I was wanting to record them and kept wanting to re-do parts…. I convinced him that the way I produce vocals is a bit of a layering effect and he had to be patient and wait until I came up with all of the doubles and harmony stacks…. after I did with his engineer Sam, he realized, ‘Oh this guy has done this a few times before.’…… :))) Kieran also held me to the fire on my lyrics, telling me he thought they were a bit ‘hokey’…. or ‘hallmark card’ provincial…. I assured him that not many pop songs used the words ‘quintessentially’ and he digressed and I kept my original lyrics verbatim….. The meaning of the song is quite simple, it is a declaration of love and harmony with that special other person that completes you. Yes, a bit of a smarmy ‘Jerry Maguire’ reference there kids.
KM
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