“1999”
I wrote 1999 during one of the wildest stretches of my life. It was 2018. I had just moved to Los Angeles. I was living in this three-bedroom apartment in Culver City, working at the Boys and Girls Club of Conejo Valley. I was enthralled by the city as we all are when we arrive. LA is a magical place. It really has an energy to it. Especially when you first get there…
For some reason I kept thinking about childhood… not because it was all that idyllic, but because it was simple. There were rules, rhythms, a mother me buying wine, (forcing me to share a glass with her) a brother flicking coins into fountains. Those moments felt like postcards from a world I couldn’t get back to.
Clonazolam was like a balm for the insanity of the city. You'd be forgiven for having no idea what that is. We on the reddit forums called it Clam, an experimental benzodiazepine synthesized in the 60's. It was too strong to put on the market so they shelved it and went forward with the now classic Diazepam and Alprazolam.
I think the song’s main idea is that nothing external, not drugs, not music, not a job… of course not SEX, really fixes anything. And there is this misguided narrator telling this depressed guy “If you did THIS you'd be fine” la la la la …
The original recording of the song was done in one long late-night session at the apartment home studio. The vocals were mostly done in one take. I didn’t want to overthink it. I wanted it to sound how I felt when I wrote it — tired, reflective, and a little distant. But the released version was a rerecorded one from 2024. Maybe someday I'll release the original recording.
The Story Behind “At Least It’s Simple”
At Least It’s Simple was written after I saw the recent documentary about Gabby Petito. I didn’t know her, but her story hit me hard. I followed the case closely, like a lot of people did. Something about the footage of her on that road trip, the happy moments, the body cam footage, the way everything spiraled, made it impossible to look away. It was heartbreaking and horrifying.
The song isn’t a retelling of the case, but it was directly inspired by it. I started thinking about what it means to be in a relationship where someone slowly disappears… emotionally, physically, and what it feels like to watch it happen. Some of the lyrics are from the perspective of someone trying to justify their own detachment — saying “at least it’s simple” when really nothing about it is. The line “O Gabby what went wrong” is direct. It’s not rhetorical. It’s the question everyone had. But that's one of my least favorite lines lol. I thought I'd replace it later but I work quickly now. With deadlines. Lest I fall into the trap of becoming a perfectionist and never releasing anything.
The last part of the song — “She’s not here / She’s not anywhere now” — is what Brian knew and nobody else did. Everybody was searching and searching. “Is she here??” No. “How bout here!?” No. Really, she's not anywhere.
There was a removed section at the end… if you go to that tiny piece of desert where they found here… you can still feel her. Her family said that.
I went psychedelic with this song. Lots of phaser and chorus on the guitars. From Guitar Rig 6, the very cool plugin. Very cool effects they have. But I feel it was written to be more of a rocker. Actually I wrote it for my other band MOLLY, but they were moving too slow. So I said “I gotta record this before I lose the spark.”
More good songs coming soon I promise!! It's gonna be a Watson summer!!