Conductor started as a collection of songs written in the winter of 2003 at house on the North Carolina coast. Cold winds blowing in from the Atlantic would often rustle palms and wind chimes on the porches of empty beach houses. The steady noise made it a little easier for a string of break-ins to continue.
Baffling local authorities.
Although most of the houses were boarded up that winter, a few remained occupied. One of these, lit almost exclusively by candle light in the evening, housed a four-track recorder, an acoustic guitar, a small city of wine bottles (both full and empty), and Andy Herod.
At the end of a two-year relationship and faced with having to find a new place to live in six weeks, the songs began to come out. Loss of love and identity and all that.
Eventually each night he ended up on the couch watching the only movie that made sense or mattered, Dark City. Upon each viewing finding new meaning, symbolism, and hope that seemed to apply directly to his own life.
Some felt that this period may have gone on a bit long...
At the end of the winter, several cassette tapes where passed along to band mate Nicole Gehweiler as well as friend and producer Alan Weatherhead. A record was soon underway. Recorded at the Sound Of Music studios in Richmond, Virginia, Conductor ended up a swampy mix of pop and fuzzed-out rock songs.
But when it came time to sequence the record, the band was stumped. Finally, one smoky evening in the studio around 4 a.m., a story line began to reveal itself in the music they were hearing. Almost instantly, the track order fell into place and plans to animate the story began.
Six weird months later came Conductor, a monument to the suicide of love erected by robots against a wintry sci-fi back drop of dark towers, moonlit skies, and a cast of lost characters. Or, perhaps it is just a break-up record. It is not yet known. What is known is that it's here, and it's massive.
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