We started joking that our band Young Indian was a hardcore band and then we kind of were. We made these songs over the course of a year or two—Micah wrote the first four and I wrote the last three—when Young Indian didn’t have shows to play or songs to learn. Not that we couldn’t have benefitted from more practice, but Patrick wanted to yell and Micah wanted to play guitar. Jon just wanted to eat cereal and Instagram pictures of dogs.

Our buddy Curtis was supposed to play bass, not me. He couldn’t make it to the first couple practices, so I filled in, kept coming, etc. I’m pretty sure that’s how Jeff Young ended up in Megadeth for a couple years. (I wasn’t supposed to play in Young Indian, either. So it was nice, to first ruin Patrick’s Russian Circles kind of drawn on loopy band and then, a couple years later, ruin Micah’s crossover thrash band.)

This record was made in two weeks. Which is a long time if you’re Deicide, but fairly reasonable if you’re My Bloody Valentine. This recording was made partially so I could practice recording for when we make the next Young Indian record and partially a going-away present for Patrick, who moved to Chicago four days after we surprised him with the instrumental tracks and said, “I don’t give a fuck how much pizza you just ate. Cut your vocals.”

Young Indian will keep on, at least for a bit longer, but Tired Hands is done for. Here’s what we did.

Also, we just thought the name sounded neat. We didn’t even think of jerking off. For once.

Here are some notes on the songs:

Tricks: We got really into Touche Amore. Patrick’s lucky we didn’t know the lyrics until he recorded them, because we’ve been saying “You’ve got a bag of dicks” since we found out.

It’s Called Excuse Me: This was more the original idea for things, I think, before the aforementioned Touche Amore obsession. This is the only song with a solo. I told Micah he should do a giant dive bomb at the end of it, but he’s never really gotten into Poison/used a Floyd Rose, so the “dive bomb” sounds like a boner going limp.

Lions Set To Strike: This one originally ended before the big dumb breakdown at the end, but after we learned the song, we just kept doing the big dumb breakdown at practice because it was some kind of really bad Throwdown or Madball shit. Other than that, definitely in line with the more drawn out Agnostic Front/DRI stuff we had in mind.

Traveling/Warning: We talked about Queensryche almost the entire time this was being recorded.

The Love Of: I stole a Have Heart riff for the end and wrote a bunch of complicated chords for the middle part, knowing I’d be playing bass. Fuck you, Micah.

Journee’s Cryin’: This song was clearly not named until after Patrick cut his vocals, nor is it about my recently-born niece, Journee, or why she’s named after something a drunk person types into a Touch Tunes. I was really into trying to write short little songs with a couple parts, because I want hardcore music to sound like Ween every once in awhile.

Five Years: Not that it matters, but I’m pretty sure Patrick doesn’t know there’s a fairly popular David Bowie song by the same name. We were so stoked to record handclaps for this song. I kept calling it “that pussy Title Fight rip off thing” when we I brought it in and showed it to the guys. I think I had a backwards hat on or something.

Thanks for reading or listening or maybe even both. I promise it won’t happen again.