Figure Eights (A Music Podcast) Episode 78 w_ The Making of "Tethered" by Dan Murphy & High on Stress

Join me as I talk about the making of the song "Tethered". It was written by Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum / Golden Smog / the Scarlet Goodbye) and I.

Nick Leet - Vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Dan Murphy - Vocals, electric guitar, bass, keys
Chad Wheeling - Electric guitar and backing vocals
Mark Devaraj - Drums
Kayla Wheeling - Backing vocals

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to Figure eights podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm your hosting the cleat in the band High On
Stress out of Minneapolis, and it has been a few
minutes since.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I've released in an episode.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
A couple of months ago, I released a brand solo
record called The Tours with some special guest friends.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Of mine and your high Rup great brand. Kevin Salem's
on the Jim Soul and my daughter was one and
of course Dan Murphy as well.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And since then Dan and I have been together brand
song and hanging out with we have seen what we
could come up with. Recently finished you saw called The
Tether released by Dan Murphy and Ion Stress.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
So it's on a band today for purchase.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
If you pick it up, all proceeds go to the ACLA.
And we just want to listen.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
To it on streaming. That's fine to you.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It's out there Apple, Spotify, on places so YouTube.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Give it a shout, give it a listen.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
But I wanted to do a special episode today walking
through that song is from hearing it before you.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Of course, there will lead more interviews coming down the line.
Right now, I've been very busy with both the solo
record coming out. I would track with Dan and the
High on Stress follow up. The whole band is still kicking.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
We're at in the studio tomorrow to continue that with
the goal of hopefully still getting it out by end
of the year.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
That is the open.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think we're getting closer.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
These things never go as fast as we want. And
what else is going Ion Stress is playing the Snotes
Listening on August eighth in downtown Las angels and you
should go to that if you were in Los Angeles area.
And Scabbler playing on the sixteenth in Minneapolis at the
DFW and uptown.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
It'll be awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's a Bill Muller's retirement party for the Militaries and after.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
A very long time, and he's asked us to play.
And Bill has been my music field since I was
a teenager. And he was also the co host of
the Matt Gentling Archers.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Of Love episode of the School.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
So congrats to Bill and also Dan Murphy fan.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Scarlett Dby is playing the Hewing on Sunday to Rooftop
downtown Minneapolis.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
You should go.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
You should the scene.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
But before we get back to.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
More Intervieter Stabler, we are going to do a little.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Review hero of the new song tethered.

Speaker 5 (02:59):
By Dan Stract, So I'll just kind of follow you
and then just call out the change.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
And go to a G to a D to a
C G D C.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
T D f.

Speaker 6 (03:34):
H.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
And that's how it started.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
That Dan and I got together in his at his
house back and I think it was March, and I
wanted to work on a song, write a song together.
After doing a couple of tracks on the Detours record
where he played guitar and did some backing vocals on
songs I had written, we talked about writing one together.
So that's what came out of the first session over

(04:14):
at his house. That little snippet there, that's that's where
it began. He was playing piano, I was playing his
Nashville strung acoustic guitar, had that guitar part, and he
was playing piano to it. As time went on, it
morphed and changed.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
It went from does this sound like Tears for Fears?
To wow, this is kind of radio head sounding? To
taken that away? And it took a lot of twists
and turns.

Speaker 7 (04:46):
So fully line immitized by all the lies we shan
hailed in No change, They're pulled Tad Lack of Bird
on the Street.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
So I took that little bit home into the studio
and started working on some ideas which you just heard
right there, added some electrics and some bass and some
different things to it. Sent it over to Dan and said,
this is coming out a little bitter and angry at
the state of the world, and I'm kind of digging it.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
And he said, let me see what I can do
to it.

Speaker 8 (05:37):
If you'll come up bet you Beta, come correct, you
playing Russian relent you Beta know what?

Speaker 7 (05:50):
Two weeks bect.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Dan brought over that, brought over a keyboard, plugged that
thing in and it had that crazy sound that you
hear right there. Plus we did some acoustics stuff on
there that ended up not making the cut ultimately, but
as kind of an interesting part of the journey.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
And really enjoyed what he came up with.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
We were really happy with that sound that came out
of the out of the guitar amp that we had
that keyboard plugged into. And he had some ideas for
the last verse. There was a different last verse that
one liked.

Speaker 5 (06:44):
This We really.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
This lafoom.

Speaker 8 (06:54):
Takes so little time to settle the score.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
They bad well.

Speaker 7 (07:07):
JOm a strong as wisted, running out of paper to bleed.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Dan came up with the new new ending in the
last verse, sent me a phone snippet of it and
it was super cool, and then we started to talk
about what we.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Wanted to do with it. So who's going to play
on it? Because at this point the demo is he and.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I, and he had the idea of getting a high
end stress drummer Mark involved and then seeing if high
on stress guitarist Chad would like to record it, because
Chad records high on stress records, including Hold Me In
and this new one, and got ahold of the guys
to see if they were interested in helping us out
with the song we came up with, and they were,

(08:07):
so we headed over to Triple T Studios here in
the Twin Cities Chad studio and got to work on
it and it instantly fell into place. I think we
had maybe three sessions to really wrap things up and
do some arranging. So at the end we finished it up.

Speaker 5 (08:29):
We had.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I was singing lead vocals and acoustic guitar, did a
little electric guitar on there as well. Dan it was
co lead vocals and he played bass and keys and
electric guitar.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
And what else.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Mark Deverage played drums, Chad played guitar, electric guitar, and
then we had a full kind of choir moment at
the end, and that was all of us singing minus Mark.
It was actually Chad on the mic. Dan and I
and Chad's wife Kayla I asked to jump on as well.
We needed the whole group to really finalize this thing.

(09:14):
So without further ado, I give you the finished product.
This song is called Tethered. It was co written by
Dan and I and it's available on band camp.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
All proceeds go to the ac LU.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
If you want to listen to it on streaming, it's there, Apple, Spotify, YouTube.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
All of the all of the places.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
So give it a listen, give it to share, share
it with friends, whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
We're down with that. So here it is the finished product.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Tether sometide the police like.

Speaker 6 (10:25):
Hypotized by all those flies.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
We shout halding no kings. Therefore tied like a bird
on the.

Speaker 6 (10:37):
Streets, your hands are tie.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
He wrote a now out.

Speaker 9 (11:00):
From being inside, we shout down with the king, simple
tie lack.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
A bird on the streets.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Know how to store, rebuild, the thing you don't. You
gotta on that hand the play, but you won't if
can got out. Ben Chapeta come correct.

Speaker 9 (11:44):
And Russian relent Chappetta.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
Know what to respect.

Speaker 9 (12:23):
Won't stay in long when the prisents of dawn the
glass ceiling shine.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
All over the floor.

Speaker 6 (12:40):
These changes firs, and I learn how to say noting.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Now the flock is just saying the ring to take
bi