Album Notes

Album Press Release:

Bill Price Releases Music CD: “With the Eye of a Skeptic...”

Bill Price has released a CD of original songs entitled With the Eye of a Skeptic. The Indianapolis-based musician has released two previous CDs as a solo artist: the 2004 album Bones & Apples, and a three-song CD single, The Circus & the Gallows, which came out in 2007. In addition to his work as a solo artist, Bill Price fronts the highly regarded Americana band The Brains Behind Pa, whose albums include the 2006 release Better for the Deal.

The 13 songs on Price’s new album (full title: With the Eye of a Skeptic & a few other Likely Stories) have a narrative feel and structure. “I wanted these songs to be more in a traditional, singer-songwriter vein than most of my previous recordings,” says Price. “Most everyone can relate to stories,” he says, “and in that sense the songs are more accessible.”

At the same time, says Price, the album has a tight focus. “There’s a similar production approach to all of the songs, although the styles vary. I picked songs that I thought worked together to form a larger whole. Although it’s more of a singer-songwriter record, I didn’t want to do the ‘solo guy strumming a guitar thing,’ so there’s a full band on all of the tracks.”

The songs were mainly recorded live, he says, “but there’s not a lot of improvising going on. The arrangements were worked out pretty carefully.” The recordings took place over a three-year period, at The Lodge studios in Indianapolis. The Lodge’s Michael Graham oversaw the recording, and shares producing credits with Price on the new album.

Price says that the album is almost entirely acoustic, noting that he and lead guitarist Paul Holdman “used five or six guitars between us, plus a bazouki and cittern” to vary the sound. He says that about half the songs employ alternate tunings. “When I write in standard guitar tuning,” he says, “my voice tends to go to the same place. Alternate tunings seem to free my voice to go to notes in the melody that I might not normally use.”

Price is joined on the album by two of his bandmates from The Brains Behind Pa: Gary Bole on accordion and melodica and Jeff Stone on upright bass. Also participating are Stasia Demos on harmonies, Paul Holdman on lead guitar, cittern and bazouki, Grover Parido on cello and Jamey Reid on drums and percussion.

“Somehow,” says Price, “all of the songs are fairly hopeful songs. Even Skeptic’s Lullaby ends on a positive note. But that was not planned. So that’s why the title has kind of a double meaning to it with the ‘likely stories’ bit.”