About a year ago I was driving in the car with my two-year old daughter and newborn son, listening to PinkFong’s rendition of “Baby Shark” for what felt like (and was certainly most likely) the 23rd time in a row, and thought to myself “there has to be a better way.” For a young father like myself who grew up on punk rock and electric guitars, navigating the deluge of children’s nursery rhymes with their saccharine sweet melodies and softly-produced jingles was tantamount to entering a nursing home at the age of 35 years old– still breathing, still happy, but missing the freedom of your younger years when you still had full control of your faculties and complete autonomy over your daily choices. When you have children you give up that speaker freedom during car rides to school and playdates, and while you do so instinctively because there’s literally nothing you wouldn’t do for your children, there becomes a moment in every parent’s life where hearing the same song for the 23rd time in a row gets to you. Any parent reading this understands those moment– it’s a rite of passage we all go through, as inevitable as the setting sun.
But that feeling of “there has to be a better way” never left. And after running into an old high school classmate of mine Kevin Leonard at one of our mutual friend’s six-month birthday party (of course it was at a toddler play date– written in the stars really), we got to talking about music, raising toddlers, and our shared passion for creative outlets. Kevin mentioned our old mutual friend Derrick Chan, who I coincidentally played baseball with during my teenage years, was getting into music production with hopes of one day owning his own mobile recording studio. Kevin and Derrick both played together in alternative rock band Amherst Aisle during college, gaining some success locally, and both absolutely crush their instruments. Kevin is an absolutely lights out bass player (one listen to his walking bass line during the bridge of “Shake My Sillies Out” will get that point across pretty quickly) and Derrick is an absolute beast behind the drum set with a really solid ear in the producer’s chair for re-creating that distinctive mid-2000’s punk rock sound we collectively grew up on together.
And so we all got to talking about how fun it would be to do the damn thing and put out a collection of songs that we’d love to listen to with our kids. I wish I could tell a better story of how it was a long drawn-out process filled with some VH1 Behind The Music dramatic twists and turns, but it really wasn’t– we got to work pretty much immediately and cranked out these songs in about four months (which, to be fair, is easier when the runtime of an 11-song album clocks in under 20 minutes). The only real hiccup we had throughout the entire process was our catalogue expanding on a weekly basis (we started with the goal of writing four songs– ended with eleven) and my absolutely neurotic re-writes of the outro for “Wheels on the Bus” that saw that section transform about eighteen different times (at one point it sounded like the end of a Christmas play on Broadway with different voiced characters coming out of the woodwork each section– dodged a bullet there, thx boys). But other than that it’s been much like the journey of being a parent– time-consuming, filled with rapid-fire decisions, and ultimately one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Enjoy the tunes, fellow parents and kids. You’ve put in the work and earned yourself a little punk rock renditions of classic nursery rhymes in your life. You can thank Derrick, Kevin, and myself later when we’re melting faces at your toddler’s next birthday party.
CREDITS
Arrangements: Jason Matthew Plank (All Tracks) & Derrick Chan (“Baby Shark”)
Bass: Kevin Leonard
Drums: Derrick Chan
Vocals & Guitars: Jason Matthew Plank
Producer: Derrick Chan
Special thanks to the fine folks at VLC Media Player for their decades of service in helping to bring digital music to the masses.
GEAR
Software/Hardware: Reaper DAW, Logic Pro X, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, Apollo Twin X, Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Pedal, RME Babyface Pro FS
Microphones: Universal Audio SD-1, Shure SM58, Shure SM7B
Guitars: Fender JA-90 Telecaster Thinline
Bass: Squire HM5
Drums: Roland TD-27, DW Collectors with Zildjian A Custom Cymbals
Amps (Digital): Soldano SLO-100, Marshall JCM800
