The Story Behind One Dance Left

September 6, 2018 by Tim Warren

Its hard to know what a song is about, even if its yours. When I sat down to write One Dance Left I didn’t know what it would be. Its like trying to determine an persons personality when they are just born. But I can tell you how it felt and I can tell you how it feels now. As I go through life, I’m learning that I don’t know anything, but the way I feel can become known, is more tangible, and more important to me if I’m being honest.

The first time I heard “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem I was at a party, feeling no pain. I had lost a bunch of weight and I was rediscovering what it feels like to celebrate my own shape, in my own body. I took most of my clothes off and put on the plastic circular orb suit that happened to be laying in the corner of the field where the party was.

(it was a good party….)

I started dancing, and my friend, Taryn, joined me in the yard.

We were running,

in circles.

It was a moment I will never forget. The next day I wrote most of what would become “One Dance Left.”

When you sit down to write a song, you can know how you’re feeling, you can think you know what you want to say, but its harder to know why.

I don’t know why that song came on at that party, I don’’t why I finally found a way to lose the weight, and shed some of the grief I had been carrying in that moment. I don’t know why Kurt Leon is becoming a master of the recording studio before my eyes, or why…no matter how finished I think I am with an idea, its never really done until Eric Donnelly invents an electric guitar part and 30 other ideas you can barely hear, but would completely miss if they were absent in the track. I don’t why Ian seems to know every style of bass playing there is, and always choses the right one to assign to each one of these new songs so well… I don’t know why Taryn understands that moment at that party for me, in a way that very few people in my life ever could, and why.. when we howl the high notes in the middle of the song together, it feels like a continuation of a announcement we’ve both made in other lifetimes. I don’t know why my wife knew the exact time to let me know that this song, needed to get released as close to the way we discovered it as possible because of the feeling of it.

Maybe we don’t get to know why. But I know how it feels thanks to all of the above. and it feels like One Dance Left.

Enjoy,

Tim ‘AR 2018

MONDAY

October 16, 2017 by Tim Warren

AR Behind The Scenes, AR Music, AR Shows

Monday

Something in the recent days, in the way the weather has put us all in our place, the way some people laugh in the face of this, and refuse to admit that we are all in this together, and that science is real and unwavering in the face of ego…. sends me falling, needfully and quietly, into music. Proud and lucky to share it with people who will listen, once again for a few good nights on the road. Proud to take some small part in the shift of consciousness, that will render certain bigoted, hateful, elitist, and isolationist ideas,

powerless.

However simple, however small, however significant a role we can play…in the next 11 days, we have 9 shows. I know this is social media and I’m supposed to just take a picture of the air freshener selection at the truck stop, and tell you to come to the next show,

but now

as a father of 2, driving past the Honda Civic with the seats empty, airbags exploded and the, windshields cracked, I know there’s more at stake in this for me now. So why mix words…

All of my dreams are wrapped up in these songs, all of my nightmares, and we play them every night to exercise the possibility that something about them, something about us, in some moment of our own making, or by our mere dedicated and stubborn participation in the idea of it, could become meaningful, inspiring, and capable of softening the human heart towards something more available and healing, that is already there in all of us, but rarely called on to celebrate itself, in these bizarre times.

The people I’m charging down the road to Nashville with, are reaching for that possibility too. That’s all we can do, and that’s all we should ever hope to be doing.

Gonna be the best damn singer I can be, gonna bring it every night, and me and the band are gonna try to find new heights with each other, and within ourselves, every night for anybody there to see it. We are going to raise each other up. Gonna tell it like it is, gonna tell it like it can be, gonna tell it like it will be one day soon,

If we just keep reaching.

Nashville, Tuesday night October 17th. 3rd and Lindsley. See you there if the fates allow.

Love ya,

Tim

We’re On The Rock Boat XVIII

July 6, 2017 by Eric Donnelly

AR Behind The Scenes, AR Music, AR Shows

The Alternate Routes, The Rock Boat

We are very excited to announce that we will once again be setting sail with so many of our good friends as part of The Rock Boat XVIII! This years lineup features Barenaked Ladies, Needtobreathe, Will Hoge, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, Welshly Arms and so many more! The boat is currently sold out, but you can join the waiting list at therockboat.com!

Paste Magazine The Alternate Routes Safe Haven

Safe Haven Official Lyric Video Premieres on Paste Magazine

June 8, 2017 by altroutes2017

AR Behind The Scenes, AR Music

The Alternate Routes are excited to be partnering with Paste Magazine to premiere the official lyric video for “Safe Haven.”

Head to pastemagazine.com on Friday June 9th to see the video before you can see it anywhere else!

The video was produced & directed by Jenna Pace of YOBRO Creative Catalysts.

“As a longtime fan of The Alternate Routes, I envisioned creating a natural and vibrant lyric video for their stunning new effort “Safe Haven” that showcases both the lyrics and the people behind the music. We shot on a chilly day right as Spring was breaking and nature was coming into bloom. My hope is that these visuals capture the powerful message that these five musicians crafted with so much heart,” says Pace.

Yobropro.com

Somewhere In America

June 18, 2016 by altroutes2017

AR Behind The Scenes, AR Music

We want to share with you a new song called Somewhere In America. We have been working on this song in various forms for many years, but I made a commitment to myself to finally finish it in recent months. It is a very personal story, but unfortunately it feels as relevant as ever.

To clarify any confusion, Somewhere in America is written from my point of view, and the story is mine. It is not written for sympathy or remembrance. It is about empathy. It is inspired by the feelings of anger, sadness, hopelessness, and guilt I feel every time I hear of another life lost and family shattered by gun violence. My story is over a decade old, but new stories are occurring every single day.

If you are reading this, then you most likely have helped support AR over the years and we can’t thank you enough. Regardless of where you stand.

I hope you listen to Somewhere In America with an open mind. I hope you it leaves you inspired. I hope it is outdated in the very near future. It is possible. If we want it to be.

-Eric

“Somewhere In America” LYRICS:

The last thing that my father saw
When he was still alive.
Was the gun in the hands of a sick young man
with bright blue eyes.
A man who looked just like me,
As far as anyone else could see
A stranger, not an enemy
And my mother watched it all.
That was the last thing that she saw.

Somewhere in America
A phone’s about to ring.
Nothing can prepare you for
the news it’s going to bring.
Nothing ever changes
Just the names and faces.
Somewhere in America
A phone’s about to ring.

An unlucky break
wrong time, wrong place
I’ve heard them all so many times.
If your dad had had a gun of his own,
maybe they’d still be alive.
But I still can’t believe the resistance.
The denial, the insistence
When somethings broken
that clearly needs fixing
You can fight to change
Or you can fight to stay the same.

Somewhere in America
the news is about to break
Nothing can prepare you for
The toll it’s gonna take
Nothing ever changes
Just the dates and the locations.
Somewhere in America
The news is about to break.

How long is too long
Before the words you can’t say
Just speak for you.

The years have been kind ma
I’ve got a son now of my own.
When I think of what I’ll tell him happened to you
I still don’t know.
That the worlds a much safer place
That kind of danger,
you won’t ever have to face.
I pray he lives to see that day
No idea what I’m going to say.

Somewhere in America
A phone’s about to ring
Nothing can prepare you for
the news its going to bring.
All this while we’ve been waiting
taking time and debating
Somewhere in America
A phone’s about to ring
Somewhere in America

If you’re interested, check out the article on Upworthy or buy a SIA tee!

Show and Tell

April 12, 2016 by altroutes2017

AR Behind The Scenes

I’m not sure if it’s a Libra thing,

or a writers thing, or a guy thing, or what, but I seem to move through life like I’m on a pendulum, throwing my enthusiasm in definitive directions, but only for a relatively short time. I enjoy the feeling you get from rushing around in a frenzy and huffing and puffing and getting it all done. There is one bi-product of this though, that is harmful to productivity and its something I count on my heroes to help me overcome. I’m talking about the void, the aftermath, the morning after, when you seem to have created this empty space in which its ok to do nothing. It’s the “well-earned Sunday-off” mentality. Sure we all need a break, but when you’re on the pendulum, it means there can be significant amounts of time you spend neglecting your craft, your hobby, your loved-ones….. Whatever the case may be. Balance is hard to achieve.

In these lulls I put on music that brings me back to motivation, and appreciation. I just wanted to take a minute to speak about two heroes of mine. Pinnacles of songwriting. Songwriters who, in my mind, never leave the workshop. Folks who live in constant service of the muse. Even if it’s not true, the idea that there is someone out there more accomplished and talented than I, pushing their envelope and discovering new things, motivates me. Here are a couple of songs and writers that make me want to be better. If nothing else, you may want to give these songs a listen in some down-time. Some very mellow down time…..

Tom Waits

Day After Tomorrow

This song is on Waits’ Real Gone Album. Its a letter home written by a soldier, a commentary on the war he’s been through. Nothing I can say about the song, could speak as clearly or with as much meaning, as the song itself, that’s why I love it.

This is Tom

“What I miss you won’t believe, shoveling snow and raking leaves.”

When few words can do the work of many, when the same words can mean something different, each of the 100 times you hear them, that is something work towards I think.

“You can’t deny, the other side, don’t wanna die any more than we do.”

“Tell me how does God chose, whose prayers does he refuse?”

These are words that collect us together, they include everyone. An atheist prayer, a criminals apology, bound by human flaw, no matter what choices we make.. Thee common denominator. So many in songwriting strive to dwell in the existential. Very few songwriters can do this from the pews, rather than the pulpit.

“And I know, we too are made, of all the things that we have lost here.”

Bravo Tom. If its possible for something to feed you, and keep you hungry at the same time, this song does.

Gillian Welch

Revelator & Dear Someone $ Hard Times.

Gillian Welch won a lifetime achievement award at the Americana Music Awards this year in Nashville. She went on after Loretta Lynn played to a sold out amphitheater. I watched the amphitheater empty out while Gillian played, and I realized in that moment, that I am not on the pulse of what is meaningful or popular in music to the masses. But it’s ok, because every time I have encountered a beautiful scene on a long drive to somewhere, or been alone with my son when he has discovered something new in the world, (to his own towering amusement,) every time I want access to feel something important, I put Gillian Welch on, and that is enough for me. It is the music I listen to the most. The writing is mystical, and enormous in its simplicity. There is so much room for the listener in these recordings, and the sadness, the tearing up, the joy, the calm it induces, the impression of it always, is flexible. Not to mention the harmonies…

I have no idea what these songs are “about.” The word Revelator is a word Gillian made up, and then went ahead and defined in the song. The artistic license in that decision alone inspires me to no end. If you’ve ever been to an Alternate Routes show, and watched a 6 minute guitar solo, you can rest assured it is not Eric demanding he get to do that before we go on stage. Allowing an artist to unfold, and to take his or her time is something I need on stage. I need to be apart of something that redefines itself all the time, something that goes beyond where you thought it would end.

When I saw Gillian Welch play at the Ryman Auditorium. they played “Revelator” last, and the guitar solo was 8 minutes long. When the audience found themselves beyond that wall, beyond the boundaries they thought the song was made of, and we all turned around and looked back at the shore from that long

This is Gillian

distance we had been carried away from it, we had been somewhere unique and adventurous, together… and everyone stood up. When music reaches, when it disorients us, when it brings us out of our own heads into a new place, where we don’t feel like we know anything, where we don’t feel expected to know so much, to a place without precedence , where we can be children and things are possible again, thats when music matters most to me. That’s the music I’m trying to create on my best day.

So here’s to some pretty ditties and some lofty chatter. Thanks for reading, I realized today I have no idea how to use apostrophes…

Big Night for Old Friends at the CMAs

April 8, 2016 by altroutes2017

AR Behind The Scenes

In radio interviews and at shows we talk a lot about how we made a commitment to being musicians at a time in our lives when some of our friends were heading off to law school and med school, or joining the Marines, or heading off into the financial industry, or whatever. If you spend 10 years working at anything, with a little talent and a lot of hard work, you are bound to ascend the ranks no matter where you start or what you’re doing. Sunday night I was watching the CMAs (Country Music Awards) and a very cool thing happened, that seems to be happening more and more these days.

We were watching Little Big Town perform with Trombone Shorty and the performance was amazing. Towards the end of the performance a cool-looking guy in great hat, and a mint condition Gibson ES-330 stepped out in front, joined the front row and ripped a guitar solo for 20k people at the MGM Grand in Vegas, (and God knows how many more people sitting on their couches at home.) I turned to my wife and said, “Hey that’s Evan Weatherford, playing the guitar, I slept on a mattress in his living room once in a while, when I was living in Nashville.” It was fun to play it down, even though the fact is, I was so ridiculously proud to know this guy, and there was something so exciting about knowing that a guy as humble and hard-working, and talented as my buddy Evan, has ascended the ranks and has made it as far as he has. There is no telling what he will do next.

I’m telling the story because we are getting to a point in our music careers where the hard work is really starting to pay-off, and the seasoned players, writers, and musicians are starting to emerge at the top of the game. Jay Joyce produced our first two records in Nashville, and its safe to say that he and Dave Cobb are probably the hottest producers in County Music right now, by far. Jay produced Girl Crush, performed by Little Big Town and has been winning awards left and right. He’s produced albums for Eric Church and Carrie Underwood, Amos Lee, Patti Griffin, and so many more. In a couple years, I would be willing to bet you won’t be able to name a top-tier recording artist who hasn’t worked with him, or is hoping to. So here’s to my buddy Evan, I wouldn’t say we are great friends or anything, but at a time when we were both scraping away in Nashville he had a mattress I could sleep on, and I texted him after the CMAs, and he shot me a message right back. Its little things like that, that keep you motivated, and make you proud to be swinging away in the music business.

Evan is on the far right in the red carpet photo, standing next to Jay Joyce, and the video of the performance is below. Bravo Fellas.

Evan Weatherford on far right.

http://www.axs.com/watch-little-big-town-trombone-shorty-join-forces-at-the-2016-acm-awar-80504

The Alternate Routes It's That Time Single

Holiday Merch

December 1, 2014 by altroutes2017

AR Behind The Scenes

It’s That Time of year again and we have a few new items that we are excited to share with you for the Holiday Season!

We have a brand new EP of 5 new original holiday songs called It’s That Time. Well, they are not all holiday songs, but most of them are. This is available now on our merch store

Our two Holiday singles It’s That Time and Sing Me a Holiday are also available on iTunes.

We also have a very unique new item just for the Holiday Season. It is called The Alternate Routes Supper Club. It is a one of a kind handmade box, filled with our newest album Nothing More, The Holiday EP, and Tim Warren’s new solo album, Somebodies Child. PLUS a laminated recipe for an amazing six course meal. Give as a gift or keep for yourself. Let us serenade you will you prepare a holiday feast! Check it out Here!

Plus our newest album Nothing More is also available on our merch store.

Happy Shopping!

Tim and Eric
AR 14′

Greetings from Boise Idaho

April 30, 2014 by altroutes2017

AR Behind The Scenes

Taking a day to catch up on day off in Boise Idaho. The last week and a half on tour with Ingrid Michaelson and Storyman have been nothing short of amazing. Getting to play songs from our new album in front of sold out crowds every night is easily one of the best times we have ever had. Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, and Oakland still to come. Then we part ways and head to LA to play our own show in Los Angeles at the Hotel Cafe.

Well back to work, but sometimes its nice to stop and appreciate something while you are still in the middle of it.

See you soon

The Alternate Routes perform Nothing More on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson March 11th at 12:35 AM on CBS.

March 10, 2014 by altroutes2017

AR Behind The Scenes

We are excited to announce we will be the musical guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on March 11th at 12:35 AM on CBS. It will be a special full band performance with special guests Kit Karlson (piano) and Bobby Yang (violin). Tune in, set your DVR’s, spread the word!

Thanks!

Tim and Eric

AR’ 14