from Bryan Willits about this recording:

This is wild. I had entirely forgotten that this was out there - we were pretty shoddy as a band in the early stages - and I'm sure I actively tried to forget it was out there at all (I don’t even have a copy of this version...). Im sure I was especially reluctant to hear this rough cut especially we put of "The Poverty" and "Nightmares" with Joel
and Troy Otte at Studi Otte who really put a lot of shine on our later studio work.

We were a young band at that point - and indeed wildly over ambitious. This was actually the first thing we wrote - a four movement concept piece - I remember it sort of coming together in Luke's parents' basement with a burst of excitement and creativity with me and Jimmy Wronski and Kris Wierenga and Luke working together for the first time.

We actually tried out Ryan Rosso as we searched for the second guitar, deciding that post Fallen Idols Kris would focus primarily on vocals. Ryan was good for sure - had some serious shreds and was a tight player, but once we brought Eric LaNoue into the room his wide ranging skills made him the clear fit (sorry Ryan). Small wonder, that Eric is the only one of us whose profession is still in the music world.

After we practiced this crazy work over and over - we had our first gig - in the dining room of the DeeLite in Grand Haven. With their usual jazz gigs, I don't think they were expecting the level of noise, nor the level of violence that erupted in that dining hall. We played horribly, I recall, on that first night. So much pent up excitement to be back "on stage." I'm pretty sure we finished what should have been a twenty minute set ("the poverty" plus one other track, "Benvolio Is Dead!") in about 13 minutes we were rushing so darn much. BUT THERE WAS RAW POWER IN IT!

If I'm not mistaken, this was the mix we did with Chris Sommerfeldt
while Jimmy and I were still playing in his band, "A Paschal Circus." The memory is fuzzy though - I seem to remember Kris in a small bathroom recording some of this on a Bluebird mic of some kind. I’m pretty sure I can hear Chris S. on some of the BG vocs. There are some characteristic quirks in this that sound like he put his touches on - which actually I wish more of which had been retained in later recordings. So there is something to this version for sure.