“Being a man of extremes, I then decided to
get every musician and singer who ever meant
anything to me to appear on the record.”
His original plan was simply to
make demos on his computer
and put them on sale online for
anyone that wanted to buy them.
But someone he respected heard
one of his tracks and asked if he
was going to put real drums on
the track and then someone else
asked if he was going to replace a
part with a real guitar. Brent could
see where this was going. The
material was already beyond the
demo stage; he had the makings
of a true record on his hands.
“Being a man of extremes, I then
decided to get every musician and
singer who ever meant anything
to me to appear on the record,”
said Brent. “The few that aren’t on
it couldn’t do it in the timeframe I
needed them.”
The record includes appear-
ances by his former Bourgeois
Tagg bandmates, Charlie Peacock,
Kasim Sulton, Todd Rundgren, Julian Lennon, and his son Adrian,
among many others. Bourgeois
Tagg opened for Lennon on a few
shows in 1986 and Julian became
a big fan of the band. Together,
they share a duet on “The Long
Road,” a song that has become
one of the centerpieces of the album. Meanwhile Rundgren was a
major influence for Bourgeois and
the producer of the band’s final
release.
“Musically, Todd made it cool to
write major 7ths and 9s in pop
songs, and not feel corny about
it,” explained Brent. “His big influence on me was lyrically. He
shocked me out my David Byrne/
Talking Heads/observational -
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