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The Story
In 1989 or 1990, Fred wrote a song called "Everything." After recording it on Abnormally Normal or Normally Abnormal? with Standard Deviation, it became one of his favorite songs to play live at open mic events. Whenever he introduced it, he joked that it was the first of a trilogy of songs he was writing -- "Everything," "Anywhere," "All The Time." The joke always got a good laugh, but in 1997, Fred actually wrote a song called "Anywhere," and the quip became two-thirds reality and one-third humor.

Over the next ten years, Fred wrote some music for a chorus to "All The Time." He also wrote a chord progression he thought might serve as the verse for the song. However, he never tied the two parts together or even gave much thought to completing the tune. Then, in 2007, the song's years in limbo came to an end.

After Fred, Ryan, and Elliott finalized the arrangement of the song "Hope," they became interested in writing more songs with intense instrumental passages. "All The Time" sprang to mind, and Fred began to ponder ways to complete it with an instrumental section. One of the novel features of the two existing songs in the trilogy was the singing of vocal nonsense syllables (the "na na"s in "Everything" and "hey oh"s in "Anywhere"), so Fred decided "All The Time" should contain a similar feature.

The possible combination of a vocal melody and an intense musical performance reminded Fred of the outro of the live version of Sting's song "I Burn For You" (in which drummer Omar Hakim builds to an incendiary crescendo over a wordless vocal melody.... Check it out by clicking here:"I Burn For You" ). Deciding he would follow Sting's lead and compose an instrumental outro for "All The Time," Fred wrote a progression of chords and a "way oh way" vocal melody. Then, he brought the parts to Ryan and Elliott, and the trio began arranging them.

Jamming on the outro chords, Fred discovered a harder-rocking single note line that quickly became the guitar solo accompaniment. After that, he and the twins decided to start the song with the outro chords so Elliott could play tabla and Ryan could play trumpet. The song gradually took shape, and on April 11, 2007, "All The Time" became another epic work in Equiliberation's live oeuvre.

Finally, when recording the vocals for "All The Time," engineer/co-producer Craig Sadler convinced Fred to sing multiple tracks of the "way-oh-way" section (Elliott sang a harmony line, too). The part is particularly noteworthy because it features the highest note Fred has ever sung on a recording. It's probably the highest note he will ever sing on a recording because he isn't sure he can sing a higher note! Listen for it!