There you go. And we don't have to worry about any revolutions springing up either. . . (laughs) No. We're not talking about being held down by the man or anything like that.
(laughs) That's good. So what would you say that the album is all about. Is it just an introduction to the group, or is there kind of a universal theme that runs throughout all the tracks? I think that the album. . . We didn't plan on it being as conceptual as it ended up being. It's definitely a conceptual album. It's not a concept album where it all sort of works together like a movie or anything like that, but the album deals a lot with what we see in everyday life and giving a voice to the people who are without a voice. It speaks to the people who are down and out and maybe have lost hope. So that's kind of what the album is about - giving hope to those who have lost hope and showing them that our hope is in Christ. That's really the essence of the album.
Cool. And there's two preview songs online right now: "Through the Clouds" and "Told You So." Can you talk a little bit about these songs? Yeah, when we started working on the album, "Through the Clouds" was the first song that we recorded. We were really happy with it, but it was really sort of a grimy-sounding song. Sonically, the song is not what the stuff on the album is. "Told You So" is a song that we did with legendary, hip-hop. . . uh, legend. . .
(laughs) I didn't say that very well, but hip-hop legend, Masta Ace - a legendary Juice Crew member. We did that song with him. He picked out the beat and we recorded the song. And we definitely wanted to make that song a single, because it's not every day that you get to record a song with someone that you grew up listening to and wanting to be like. So we decided to press up a 12 inch single. So the A-Side is "Told You So" and the B-Side is "Through the Clouds."
"Through the Clouds" has sort of become a show favorite. The people who see us on a regular basis usually request us to perform that song, but neither of those songs are on the album. There is a remix of "Told You So" on the album, but neither of those songs made it, mostly because of the sound quality. It just wasn't as good as everything else on the record. That was real important to us as well. We're all underground heads and we've always felt like a good song can sound like garbage as long as it's a good song, but on this album, we wanted to make sure that the sonic quality matched the quality of the song. So we were very particular about that.
Wow, so who broke the news to Masta Ace that his song didn't make the cut? (laughs) Well, like I said, there is a remix on the album, so he is still on the album. So luckily, we didn't have to tell him that he didn't make the record. He's still on the record.
So now is the only way to get those songs to buy the vinyl?