"The Dream" from Electric Artifacts

Photo by Steve DePino

This was always one of my favorite cuts from the Guesthouse sessions. We recorded it late one evening in the live room at The IsOkOn up in Woodstock, NY with the musicians gathered in a circle. It was one of those jams where it felt like we were channeling something, and it could only have happened because we were all together in a room and truly listening to each other. Josh D Kaufman dreamed up the bass groove, and it quickly put us in a trance. I remember Greg playing his banjo flat on his lap with a beer bottle for a slide and Max clanking against his drum hardware. Everyone was playing with so much restraint as if we conjuring a spirit and trying not to make any sudden movements lest we scare it off.

For me, the song is about what happens when your dreams become an obsession. If you allow yourself to become overpowered by your ambition, you can lose sight of what started your journey ("I don't even remember what the dream was"). I'm built in such a way that I have to be careful about this.