Elephants Bury Their Dead "The mental health one"

Released December 29th 2017

Oh boy…strap in kids this is where it gets pretty dark

So now with HEAL released, a few gigs under our belt and rehearsing regularly with these cats, my focus in 2016 was writing a new album.

Here’s where it got a little tricky…

So we had Victor on drums, whom I referred to as “the martini fueled madman” and he tried really hard and had great energy! I compared his playing a lot like Peter Criss he had that swing, jazz style but could still play some good old four on the floor rock.

Problem was unlike Darrell, we had no way to record his parts. None of us really had the means to record live drums which means I would have to book some studio time and shell out some $$ which at the time I really couldn’t afford on my own.

Now programmed drums, have come a LONG way from the drum machines of old. Especially on GarageBand you can literally pick a drummer based on style and boom! They play along even with fills and accents based on the track you want them to follow.

To be completely transparent, unless you were a trained musician? I don’t think the “normal” listener would know the difference if I’m being honest.

We will get to it on other installments, but I felt even though it was my “solo project” I wanted the band to be on the album! but I figured “eh, I’ll jump off that bridge when we get there” for now, I was just concentrating on writing new music.

So another year had past, then most of 2017 and by this time, although I was a skinnier Greg, I was FAR from a Healed Greg.

I was still drinking pretty heavily and consistently when I could. Mostly I would wait until the wife and kids were away and then I would really spend that time tying one on and writing/recording music. I would say out of the 10 tracks, over a 3rd of them were recorded while impaired.

It was also around the beginning of 2017 that I was sent to the ER. I was super stressed out with work, kids, everything and I locked myself in the room trying to breathe it felt like I had an elephant on my chest so my wife took me and dropped me off at the ER.

She was thinking I was having a heart attack, but I knew what it was.

It was then that I was diagnosed as having a severe panic attack, they threw a Xanax at me and sent me home. I immediately was sent to therapy and with the help of that and medication I slowly started to get the help I’ve needed for more than half my life.

I always struggled with my brain never truly “shutting down” and in situations I would find myself profusely sweating not knowing why and having to shake my hands (which I believe they call it “stemming”) that’s when I would “self medicate” with booze. Alas, a cold Stella Artois was not always available, so I had to learn how to deal.

So at the end of the year with a ton of stuff demoed and no sign of getting into a proper studio with the band I had, by thanksgiving I said “fuck it” and released the first single “resurrection” on that weekend, with the full album at the end of the year with the programmed drums, with Helene and Shawn playing on a few of the tracks.

By this point, I was ready to “bury those Elephants” and move on.

The album title came from a podcast I was listening to where the host casually brought up “you know Elephants bury their own dead?” When one in the family dies elephants apparently will bury them and even shed tears.

Looking back, we played a lot of songs live from this record, but sonically especially compared to HEAL it does not hold up. It was the best I could do at the time and just wanted to move on playing live more and write more songs. When we get to the live album, now THAT represents how I really wanted them to sound but alas…

However, it was the next phase that really shook things up personally and professionally.