Andrew Paul Woodworth
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Thick Black Mark
Albums in our Online Store: Andrew Paul Woodworth - Eddy ate dynamite
I’m just trying to turn the bad into the good...
John Paul Jones called him the best lyricist he had ever worked with. At the L.A. Music Awards 2004 he was chosen “Male Vocalist of the Year”, and his music has been utilised for the Roswell-Show, by ESPN, the biggest sports broadcaster worldwide, and by the makers of the cult series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And yet, the biggest breakthrough in the life of Andrew Paul Woodworth came with the Beastie Boys’ smash party hit You Got To Fight For Your Right (To Party). His goosepimple-raising acoustic version left mouths gawping in amazement ― audiences as well as insider circles in the music biz ― and, in the end, turned out to be the kick that sent him starting off on a solo career as songwriter. The solo debut by Andrew Paul Woodworth is now ready for release: “Eddy Ate Dynamite”.
“Eddy Ate Dynamite, Good-Bye Eddy” is the mnemonic shortcut that kids in the USA use to become familiar with the basic notes of their guitar’s strings: E-A-D-G-B-E. For Andrew Paul Woodworth, the step up to a solo career is equally a new start with which he is beginning the game all over again.
Solidly anchored in the L.A. scene, Woodworth founded the post-Grunge band Elephant Ride in the ’90s. Their first album was produced by John Paul Jones, the legendary bass player from LedZep, at his own request. Though the feedback was decidedly positive, the album didn’t fulfil Sony’s commercial expectations. The result: no second album with a major label. In addition, internal problems within the band led to a split-up. In 2002, Woodworth brought the band Virgil to life, equally clearly Rock-oriented, and certainly an above-average Indie success: Movie theatres across the US presented Virgil in their audio programmes and screened the videos on Top 50 markets. The band played at SXSW, and at the LA Music Awards 2005 the Virgil album “My Paradise” received the award for the “Independent Rock Album of the Year”.
Nearly simultaneously, Andrew began recording his first songs of his own together with producer Christian James-Hand. While working, it was more of a mood that led to the creation of Fight For Your Right, but the feedback came right away ― for example from the producers of “One Tree Hill”, who immediately featured the track in their TV series.
At this point it became clear to Andrew that he was already in the midst of kicking off a solo career. He began writing songs like a man obsessed. Together with James-Hand he completed the EP I Hate Music, which promptly became a small Indie hit in a very limited edition. The next logical step: a full-scale album.
Produced by Evan Frankfort (The Wallflowers, The Jayhawks, Rancid), Eddy Ate Dynamite displays the diversity Andrew Paul Woodworth has to offer on 12 songs and 3 interludes; not to mention his love of both melody and painstakingly arranged instrumentation. So it’s no surprise that real strings can be heard on the album, two violins and one cello. Besides that, there’s a horn player, a banjo, a harmonica and all kinds of little sound gimmicks that turn the album into an ear-catching trip.
Andrew Paul Woodworth’s voice might perhaps be described as the love child of Michael Jackson, Eddie Vedder and Jeff Buckley: emotional and entranced by melody, but never soft or powerless. Eddy Ate Dynamite reveals Woodworth as a man addicted to harmony through and through. It presents a kaleidoscope of different styles of playing within Pop and Songwriting. From light-on-its-feet and radio-worthy to introverted and melancholy and on to playfully complex harmony lines enhanced by suggestive horn arrangements, Woodworth pulls out all the stops time and again in order to find new approaches for his songs. Remarkably, a certain lightness weaves its way through all the tracks that enables listeners to lean back and enjoy.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Eddy Ate Dynamite is just a carefree experience. A kind of double-bottomed meaning characterises nearly all the lyrics on the album. Even when they deal with hope, the optimistic search for a better place and a whole lot of love on the surface, lurking behind there is often a problem, something out of the past to be coped with, or him simply settling accounts with himself. It’s the conflict that arises for someone who doesn’t make things easy for themself, and it always involves the darkness that shimmers though wherever light shines. For instance, Thick Black Mark, the supposedly cheerful opening cut, sings the praises of having friends while bitterly settling accounts with one’s own feelings of guilt at the same time; The Day After The Day After Tomorrow is simultaneously an optimistic look ahead while wrestling to be freed from inner compulsions. Woodworth’s texts are both: artfully encoded lyrics that focus on themes which are valid for one and all, yet also lyrics that don’t shy away from calling a spade a spade. Woodworth has a sharp eye, an eye schooled by constantly seeking his own centre, which, in turn, has left him no peace his whole life long. Here is where the purely acoustic version of Fight for Your Right reveals its second face: as a doubt-plagued hymn to the detached disfunctionals among us who have no other choice but to go their own way.
One of the key words on this album is change. The change from a Rock musician who had his roots in bands to a Pop-oriented songwriter, but also the transition that occurs in going from one state to another. From problematical to enlightened, from being insecure to being someone with foresight. “I was always an angry young man,” Andrew explains. “I was often furious. I put the blame on others and on myself when anything went wrong. I annoyed friends because I behaved badly until I realised that I was feeling sorry for myself. I asked myself: ‛Can’t there be a better way to do all this? Can’t it even be possible to make the world a bit better?’ At least you have to try.”
On the whole, an insight that has made Eddy Ate Dynamite a positive, bright album chock full of newly gained energy. “So I’m just trying to turn the bad into the good”, as Andrew says in closing. “To transform self-pity into love, and anger into passion.”
©TomBeege07
Step by step into “Eddy Ate Dynamite”
“Eddy Ate Dynamite is all about hope and the question of whether things can’t be changed for the better. I used to play in several Rock’n’Roll bands where things mostly dealt with feeling sorry for yourself and being unsatisfied. I was immature and full of hate and anger. But when I started my solo career I had had enough of always feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to change something.
The album turned out to be very ‛up’. Even my friends were surprised. I feel a lot better now with this positive attitude, and you can hear it in the songs. But they still settle up with my past, too, with the mistakes I made and the times I failed. And – all the songs have to do with love somehow.”
Thick Black Mark.
And if I could prove my heart was bigger than my ego
Could I expect my friends to forgive me for the things that made me wrong?
“This song is about guilt. I’m one of those people who can’t sleep at night sometimes because I ask myself if I behaved right that day. But it’s also about having to try to turn bad into good. Sometimes you have to suffer to find the real you.”
Everything To Everyone
“A kind of appeal, a plea as a song. An attempt to convince someone, and therefore yourself, too. If I can overcome my insecurity and shove my feeling of being ashamed aside, then I can show you that I like you and that you can feel safe with me. Together we can do anything.”
I know you’re following your heart, darling.
I know we can do whatever we want.
The Day After The Day After Tomorrow
The day after the day after tomorrow
We’ll decide on a road that we can follow
“A real be-happy song. Though it is about escape, it’s a path to a better world. We’re not there yet, but I know that we’ll get there. The horns give the song a playful, merry flair.”
Pleasure To Meet You
“The first ballad on the album, very romantic. It’s about a kind of Bonnie & Clyde relationship and describes an intense encounter between two people who drop out of the usual and only do what they think of. I love Prince’s songs in which he tells about other people in the third person. I wanted to do something like that here, too.”
Salesman
„Clearly a love song. A woman offers a man an abundance of wonderful things like a traveling saleswoman pushing a cart full of miracles. Actually it’s about my wife. We just married recently. Her aura is amazing, and everybody likes her. Even women like her a lot, although women often act very jealously among each another. That says a lot. That’s probably why I fell in love with her.”
Seen Change
“One of the two instrumental interludes on the album with the same name. These parts are about my co-musicians. I wanted to have them step out here and not sing. I love the chemistry that emerges when people make music together. You grow with it and change in the process. You have to listen. Just like you have to listen to the world if you want to change it.”
Something You Could Do
„I have a difficult trait: Sometimes I can become very distant and withdraw into myself. That has absolutely nothing to do with the other people around me and is usually misunderstood. This song is a kind of apology. The request to understand me and then leave me be. And to accept me again afterwards.”
But there’s something you could do
To relieve me of the pressure.
You could let me come to you.
Give Me An Hour To Clear My Throat
“Again a song in which I take myself to court. It’s about jealousy, and everyone knows how that is. When the other one is far away and you can’t see her. You don’t know what she is doing, if she’s thinking about you. And then comes the fear of losing her. But it also shows how much you love someone.”
I’m cold and embarrassed. And jealous tonight.
This Could Make Me Religious
“I’m not religious at all. And I don’t believe in God or the devil, either. Yet at times there is a moment of love or happiness that does have something almost religious about it. At times like that you could almost pray to it ...”
‘Cause we danced so high.
Yeah we danced so high.
Turkish T.V.
„Another song about escape. My wife comes from a Turkish family that lives in England. The family lives very traditionally. They only speak Turkish, they only read Turkish newspapers, and they only watch Turkish TV. That can be very confining and very hard. We went to visit them once and sometimes ran away secretly to feel free again.”
There’s a place I can almost feel.
It’s so real that it’s almost real.
There’s no worry and no disease
And no Turkish T.V.
Ropemaker’s Daughter
“When you love, it’s not something that everybody always understands. People try to persuade you that the other person’s not right for you, that you’re not a good match and that your love has no future to it. They knot ropes and try to bind the woman you love to them so that she doesn’t go out with you. But if you stick together you can free yourself.”
And I’d like to know you every single day.
And I’d like to know I’ll never see us change.
And I’d like to know that this is the beginning of our happy ending.
You Got To Fight For Your Right (To Party)
“Where it all started. This is the first take of the first recording. The best thing is that the Beastie Boys gave release approval for the song right after they heard it. And they almost never approve songs.“
