Laurence Maher and I had been spending a great deal of time together in another band where I was switching between saxophone and bass guitar, and Laurence was playing drums, electric guitar, and keyboard. We had very quickly formed a bond and realized we had similar musical interests.  Before we knew it, we were setting up studio recording space in Laurence’s house in NoDa (North Davidson Street area for my non-Charlotte people).  

Most nights we would hang out, sing and play some music, go out and enjoy the nightlife, and then come back and record music.  It was a great workflow because we had the best of both worlds: music and NoDa.  What more could you need?

Our recording setup was minimal, but we captured a great sound.  One night, I was sitting on the couch after we had just come back from a bar, and I started playing the fingerpicking opening line of what would become “Greens In The Trees.”  Laurence told me to keep playing it, and he hopped on the drums.  Laurence made the iconic beat that keeps the song thumping.  Once I heard it, I told him to keep playing and I grabbed the bass guitar.  Pretty soon, we had a decent rhythm track to work with.  

Next, Laurence grabbed his electric guitar, and I grabbed my sax.  He plugged in and I had my mic armed, and we just jammed over the song.  The sax solo and the guitar parts are all actually from that first take!

We sat in the room for hours and listened to the track that we had made on loop, and we began to sing the harmonies.  After the vocals were recorded and the 4 harmonies were laid down, I started to mess with the arrangement of the track a little bit.  I wondered what it would sound like with just the bass.  A bass breakdown.  So around the middle of the song, after the sax solo, I took everything out and just let the bass breathe in the song.  Laurence really liked that vibe and told me when to bring the drums back in.  He listened to that section and was ready to record.  I sat and watched this man freestyle some of the most intricate and interesting lyrical bars I have ever heard in my life.  He wrote the entire verse off the top of his head and his recording is also a first take.  Unbelievable.  

From that night, we listened to the song a couple times and then, like a lot of musicians, never did anything with it and totally forgot about its existence.  Flash forward almost 4 years, and I stumbled upon a project called “livetakejamms.”  I took all of the layers of the song, cleaned them up, mixed it, mastered it, and then sent it to Laurence.  He loved the mix, shared a few notes with me, and we agreed to release the song to the world.  

This song actually reminds me of an interesting conversation I had a few weeks ago among friends.  We realized that when we use words to describe things we see such as “red” or “blue,” we are merely using those words as reference points to what we understand “red” or “blue” to be.  Theoretically, everyone could actually be seeing all of these colors completely differently, but we are just using the same linguistic references.  It’s possible that my “red” is not the same as your “red.”  It’s kind of a jarring thought.  

“Greens In The Trees” is a song about celebrating and embracing our unique perspectives.  

“We see everything differently, just be you and I’m gonna be me.”