The Birth of a Tribute

How I Managed To Purge the Ghost of my Idols

       As I began tracking my new record "Anything But Ordinary" a very interesting situation began to develop. "Anything.." is a song cycle consisting of songs that I wrote, some of them many years ago depicting major events in my life beginning with the death of my father. As I tracked each one, and took meticulous care to see that they didn't all sound alike (as that tends to happen with my records if I'm not careful) I noticed that although the songs were a fair piece different from one another, they all seemed to share a certain vibe. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but one day as I was driving home from my teaching gig listening to Pandora, the answer slapped me square in the face. "Of course!!! It's REO Speedwagon!" Now to those that know me, that won't come as a huge shock, as I have obsessed over the band since I was old enough to know what music was. After some thought I decided to record a couple REO songs for the record as bonus tracks. As I began tracking those, two turned into three, then four. I decided that work on Deus... Would have to wait until I got this out of my system. Organically, the idea of a double album came to me as though it was the answer to the world's most obvious rhetorical question. So when "Anything But Ordinary" drops there will be an additional record that I'm calling "Ghosts of The Machine: The Music and Influence of REO Speedwagon" as I can think of no other way to describe what happened in the studio. The boys from Champaign invaded my sessions, and wouldn't allow me to proceed until I had settled the score with them.If you hate REO Speedwagon (many in my circle do, including my wife) then hopefully these songs will make you at least appreciate their impact on my music. Cause I'm tellin' ya, without them, there'd be no Ben Bitter music at all. See ya on release day!

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