Destiny & Dishonor
Notes
When we started Donerail almost 5 years ago, it was really more about getting drunk and listening to Uncle Tupelo records than writing solid songs. Dan and I were stuck in Eugene working way too hard for much too little and looking desperately for something to make life worthwhile. Dan really didn’t know how to play the bass and I didn’t know how to write a song, so we tried our damnedest to learn “No Depression” while downing mason jars of Hammerhead Ale.
Things started to take off when I realized that it was easier for me to write a song than to learn someone else’s. Pretty soon, we were writing songs and playing as a 3-piece with our friend Dain (who’d never really played drums either). After a year or so, we played our first gig, delighting some regulars, while pissing off the others. That trend never seems to end.
We tried expanding a couple times, and always failed to find the right fit when Jake came along. We played frequently in Eugene for a year until fate crossed our paths again. Dain was off to Korea, Jake and I to Portland.
We found Sean pretty quickly, and were able to get back to work. The next year found us adjusting to Portland, the scene, the people, the clubs, the grind. We played from Seattle to Eugene, gaining fans one by one. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. The best time to be in a band is the idealistic and optimistic days at the beginning. When you’re writing your first songs and you’re thinking that you’re the greatest thing since The Replacements.
When the thought came up that we should record another album, it was approached with a seriousness that wasn’t present the first time. I wanted this album to be more professional, cleaner, fuller sounding than “Disconnected.” We were going to need to spend the first months of the new year working on getting all our songs perfect.
In early March 2008, we showed up at the Masonic Temple to record our second album. We worked with Ezra Fowler who impressed us with his level of involvement and appreciation for our songs.
We recorded around 16 songs of the 20 that we had prepared. Everyone played beyond their potential and the excitement was palatable. Though we had entered the old Masonic Temple with wide-eyed enthusiasm, in a month we were beaten and defeated. While the album was sounding better and better every time I went to Ezra’s house, I wasn’t aware that Sean was losing interest in the band. By Spring, he’d left.
That was a defining moment for me. Really, when you look at it, Dan and I have been in about 3 bands during the lifetime of Donerail. It had been 4 years since we started the band. I didn’t want to go through the motions of finding another drummer and starting over. Dain came to us late, we had songs for him to learn and it took a long time. When we added Jake, we had to teach him our songs, and he taught us his. Then Sean came into the band when we had about 20 songs. The idea of teaching someone new 40+ songs was not at all appealing. I’d wrestled with the thought of giving up, when I realized the feelings I was having were really captured in our album.
Sean’s departure got under my skin. It irked me; I felt it was a betrayal. I thought that we had done something so right, that to abandon it was an insult. In fact, that’s how the album got the name Destiny & Dishonor.
Listening to it, there was never another name. Whether we knew it or not, that’s what this album is. From “Bozeman” to “Suspended Time” to “Last Night in Town,” the songs are trials of greatness within realistic futility. It is flawed characters trying to be great and potential happiness marred by misfortune. It’s Portland and us, me and Jake, Sean and the band. It’s the album we needed to make.
–jP