NEWS

Update 7/09 from Brian Moritz:

Joe and I have been buddies and have been working on various music projects over the past 10 years; he was a big part of Balance II being a world-wide released disk, as I produced it just after watching him go through Mecca's first recording and release. Joe has always been a mentor to me (even though he is younger), as he's gone through many of the pitfalls in the biz and has had my back. Vocalist extraordinaire Thom Griffin hooked us up about a decade ago when he realized what a perfect match we are creatively after having worked with both of us through the years. When Joe was first over at my old studio he was looking around and he said "There is something wrong here!” Surprised I turned and asked what is it.   Joe said, "You have all these CD's like Toy Matinee, Giraffe, Kevin Gilbert, Pages, etc… it looks like my disk collection!”

Joe is one of the most gifted musicians I've met, If I think of myself as a total workaholic, they haven't invented the word to describe Joe's brand of focus. I'm just far beyond thrilled he's on board helping the band co-write and co-produce this disk - which we hope will floor people on a lot of different fronts. Balance II was the precursor to this, this CD was supposed to be Balance III, but when the New York band Balance came back from the dead, I figured it was time for us to change the name as it was causing problems with foreign press who thought we were the same 80's band and I'd spend half my time in interviews dealing with the confusion. I had never heard of the band when we formed Balance in the mid-90's and we had already released a disk and it was years later that I heard of the band. They hadn't recorded in 30 years and I didn't see the problem until after BII was released and then in the global press it was clearly a problem.

My first indication that Distorted Priorities was onto something amazing was listening back to Rod Morgenstein's drum tracks, which words like inspired and magical don't begin to describe... Bryan Mitchell engineered a world-class job tracking the basic tracks (bass and drums) in an amazing studio we used to co-own, the fidelity is simply otherworldly in part Neve, part an amazing stable of mics and preamps, and definitely part Bryan. Dave's bass tones and Rod's drums sound incredible. There is something about the groove and vibe that reminds me of Led Zep II, and to me that's a ball hit out of the park. We used a lot of ambient mics and had an amazing tracking room with gobs of natural reverb that was captured with 3 Elam 251's and Royers. Mixing those room mics in makes the best digital reverbs sound boring in comparison.

I apologize to our fans that it's been so long between releases, but the wait will be well worth it, I promise! It took a while to figure out the DP puzzle and there was definitely a missing piece that is now filled with Joe's incredible talents. Stan Cotey and I are hard at work, sending stuff back and forth and soon we'll get some stuff posted and you can be the judge.

If I had to form the best band in the world - and I had anybody in the world to choose from, this is the band!!! My luck sucks except when it comes to art and for some reason God opens these amazing doors of opportunity.  I'm going to do my very best to run through the door and make this disk as amazing as possible.

Peace, and best wishes,

- Brian Moritz