Album Notes

After a devastating boat wreck in the bayous of Louisiana left guitarist/vocalist Reese Donohue bedridden for an entire summer, his mother’s friend and local musician C.C. Adcock offered to bring by a guitar and teach him a few chords to help while away the hours. By the end of the summer, what once seemed a tragedy proved to be a blessing in disguise and gave Reese the lifelong pursuit of music. Two years later, Reese met drummer Joe Gray and together they sharpened their musical teeth in the bands Ricksha and, later, Meet the Great Concealer, both of which experienced moderate success in the Lafayette, Louisiana music scene. The two boys resolved to head west and continue playing in the Bay Area, where they met bassist and Los Angeles native Austin Fraser (Dinosaur Dance, Bows & Eros, Moustache), practicing in the basement of their student Co-Op at UC Berkeley. Meanwhile, keyboardist Steve Lance (Narwhal, The Shark That Ate My Friend) was touring California in a pop band, opening for INXS and a weird assortment of aging radio menaces (Hoobastank, Puddle of Mudd, et al.), before his pop career climaxed on a ski-slope in Vermont, opening for Hot Hot Heat in a snowstorm. In the process of negotiating a record deal with Interscope, Steve came to hate the phrase, “Let’s create some synergy,” and decided his time would be better spent in college, where he met Reese. After Austin recruited violist and Connecticut native Mark Rodgers (Bows & Eros, Moustache, UC Berkeley Baroque Ensemble), the boys bought a school bus and the hills gave birth to Butterfly Bones.