I suppose I should start by letting you all know what the hell “Copy and Paste” is.
“Copy and Paste” is the name of the first album release for The Deep Shallow Band. Later I’lll share where this name derived from, but first I think I should travel back in time a bit to explain how this all came to fruition.
Most of you know that I was the lead singer in Satchel Foot for quite a few years. We played with many national acts and ultimately toured the Southeast. After many years with different lineups, I pretty much decided it was time to move on to other projects.
One of the things that frustrated me the most was trying to get across what I wanted the drum parts to sound like in my songs, so I bought a drum kit and took lessons from Donnie Marshall, one of the best drummers I had ever seen or played with. It was an amazing time, because drums have always been my favorite instrument. I played snare and percussion in middle school band, so I had an old-school love for the instrument. After two years of lessons and many days of practice, I landed a gig with a group much younger than my old ass. One of my friends asked me if I was the fucking camp counselor in the band, ha ha. My people hold no punches.
From there, our bass player quit, and the band asked me if I would switch up instruments. I was honored that they thought enough of me as a musician to believe that I would be able to make yet another musical transition. I explained that we had to find a drummer that was better than me because though I LOVED playing drums, I knew good and damn well I needed to be better. Turns out that these guys had found Mike Coon, who was a complete badass and MUCH better than me. I borrowed a Fender P Bass and gave it a shot, and I immediately fell in love with playing the bass.
Rhythm has always been in my soul and something that came natural to me. With that said, I knew I had to step up my game, and though I had enough knowledge to play bass, I was attacking it like a guitar player as opposed to how a true bass player would attack it. I asked Dustin Hoffses to give me some lessons and he helped me become a pretty damn good player. I felt completely at home playing bass, and Mike and I became one hell of a rhythm section. The band didn’t last much longer after that, but I had an amazing time regardless.
Being in a band is a bitch. I mean, you are actually married to multiple people with the music you make being the intimacy. And though we were all having a good time, the music simply wasn’t good enough to hold a bunch of egos together. So, we kind of let it drift away, much like our name, which was The Driftwood Project. I had started dating someone who had a 1-and-a-half-year-old little girl, and it just felt right for me to take a hiatus from playing live and spend some time being the best father I could be. I spent roughly 6 to 7 years out of bands altogether, but I still sat in with some folks from time to time while writing some of the material that would eventually end up on this new album.
This was a very new world for me to navigate without any musical collaboration. There was a sadness to turning the page, an anxiety caused by the unknown, and also a calm without experiencing the chaos that comes with running a full band.