Here's some of Leela doin' her thang in the lovely Del Florida:

Journal Entry #1: The Story of Good Weird

Basic Printer's first tour ever took place in March 2017. I had a 4 piece band touring with me. One of our worst shows on tour was in DC, with a band called Del Florida. Not a lot of people were there, the venue really sucked, and I was feeling kind of sick at that point. However - what didn't suck - was Del Florida. They set up and started playing, and my band's collective jaw dropped. They were fantastic.

Apparently, they felt similarly about us. So the natural thing to do when I got home was ask Leela, the singer, if she wanted to collaborate on a song.

Now at this point, I was in a relationship and didn't have much turmoil. This is the soil from which Good Weird grew. I was happy and proud with who I was, which looking back, is kind of a rare feeling for me. So I capitalized on it. The lyrics are about not giving a fuck about what anyone thinks and just being you. More importantly - it's about how we are elevated by our creations. When we express ourselves, we become tastemakers. The naysayers start listening to US. That was such a powerful revelation - the fact that being different and notable, and being loud about it - it overpowers those who want to bring you down. Your message becomes louder than theirs. That blew me away when I realized that - that's what the lyrics "'Cause we the ones telling you what you need" is all about.

When constructing the song, the only directive I gave myself was to purely construct the song -for- Leela. This directive helped me a lot, as usually I just get lost chasing the rabbits in the wonderland that is my head. But focusing it around Leela's style and presence - it just focused it all together and took a bit of my ego out of it.

It started with a drum machine I had been dying to own for years and finally found for $300 on a used Guitar Center shelf - the legendary TR-707. I made a pattern on the 707 and then immediately went for the synth bass. I knew it had to be funky, for Leela. And then came that hook - once I found that I just knew I had the whole song figured out.

They aren't immediately obvious, but there's trombones by my friend Daniel Romberger on the track. He runs a YouTube channel of video game covers - his channel was relatively new at that point and I had caught wind of a few of his videos and really loved his quirky style. So, I asked if he wanted to hop on this track...he came up with such an insteresting composition, full of cluster chords with a ton of motion. It was so wild. I put them through an Electrix Filter Factory and live tweaked the frequency knobs into the final take...one of the coolest things on the song in my opinion.

I liked the idea of pulling both Leela and Dan for this track - I feel like this is often the role I play as a musician. My music lends itself to take inputs from all sorts of genres and all sorts of styles, and so often I'm curating show bills that would never occur naturally - like experimental synth band Flesh Eater next to pop Diva Kate Pucket - but put BP in between them and it flows nicely! I felt like this collaboration had that interesting curation as well. Dan is big into video games and Leela loves neo-soul and funk...I think it makes the most sense that these two fronts would meet only on a Basic Printer song :)

GEAR USED:

Roland TR-707 Drum Machine (Drums)
Arturia Minibrute Bass Synthesizer (Bassline)
Roland JU-06 Digital Polysynth (Various Pads/Chords)
Trombone (Accompaniment in verses)
Korg Poly-800 (Soothing pads in the latter half of verses)
Roland AX-09 (Piano and organ sounds)
Electrix Filter Factory Filter (Autowah bass on last chorus, effects on trombones)
Fender Telecaster (Guitar)