Write-ups and commentary-download coming soon.
Released in May of 2005.
"Grounds" is Derek's first record as a solo artist. It laid
the course for the, shall we say, bipolar nature of the rest of his career.
Bouncing back and forth between sentimental ballads and rock-based songs, the
record shows Derek's full dynamic range. Focusing largely on Christian material,
the record made a good starting point, even if it was done more as an obligation
than a labor of love.
Says Derek: "'Grounds' was an interesting
experience. I had like ten-years of songs that I had to deal with. I had a duty
to some of those songs, and also to some people who had expectations of hearing
them. I narrowed it down to the ones I felt like I HAD to put on a record, just
incase I only got to do one. Stuff like "Fall Apart" and "Beautiful" seemed more
necessary than anything else. I'm really glad I have those songs down, but at
the same time, I don't really feel like the record was truly representative of
who I was as a writer or person at the time. I still do a few of those songs
live--a LOT of them, if I'm doing a church gig--but there are some I'd probably
have done without were I putting it together today. ("Wonderful" comes screaming
to mind. Sorry to anyone who loves that one.)
It was a first project. A
learning experience. I engineered it myself, having never done that before. In
that respect, I'm extremely proud of the end result--especially considering I
was using a VERY sub-par free recording program, in whatever version of Windows
I had before XP came out. The odds were against me (laughs)! I don't want to
sound like I don't LIKE it, because I do--really. I listened to it not long ago,
and I enjoyed it. It's just one of those things that I hear it and think, 'yeah,
that's good...but if I could do it NOW, I'd...' whatever. I hear the places I
could have done better or fixed. No one else does--or at least no one's said
anything.
In all, there are some really GOOD songs there, and I'm really
happy with it. Plus, working with Nikomas (Perez, drums) is always a pleasure. I
occasionally sell or give away copies of the stuff I've done, and I keep getting
really positive reviews on this record--in fact more people probably refer to
this one than anything else I've done. That says something. I'm pretty proud of
that. I like that the thing that I think of as getting my feet wet is the thing
people gravitate toward. Kind of tells me that I should always look at music
that way--as a learning experience. I got it right on this one, by that
reasoning.
I'm looking forward to writing new write-ups of the songs for the website.
I'm going to have the record playing as I do it, and I'm going to try to record
my thoughts while I'm listening to each song. Then I'll have it typed up.
So...look for that, I guess."
