equiliberation.com

The Story
"Equiliberation" was born in an intense jam session during rehearsal. Elliott started with the rhythm, Fred and Ryan chimed in with various extensions and alterations based on a G# minor 9 chord, and within a few minutes, most of the music was written. Fred started singing "Equiliberation," and by the next time the band met for rehearsal, he had written all of the ( admittedly minimalistic) lyrics.

The song seemed to tap into the same euphoric energy as "Hope," so Elliott suggested playing the last chord of "Hope" using the rhythm from "Equiliberation." Then, the songs could be performed back to back, with "Equiliberation" following "Hope." The trio tried Elliott's suggestion, and it was immediately clear the two songs belonged together.

On February 13, 2007, the band debuted "Equiliberation" in a live setting. It subsequently became a concert staple, always following "Hope."

As far as the recording of "Equiliberation" is concerned, there are a few items worthy of comment. First, the guitar solo is the solo Fred played while recording the scratch guitar track. So, in essence, it is a one-take recording, printed with the delay effect on the track. It's not 100% perfect, but Fred is thankful to the guitar/recording gods (not to mention engineer/co-producer Craig Sadler) for granting such a spontaneous musical gem.

The second item worthy of note is that the solo that follows the guitar solo is a bass solo. Ryan played his bass through a multi-effects pedal, so the sound is enormous and quite different from a typical bass tone.

Finally, the band was called "Equilibrium" when Elliott, Fred, and Ryan wrote "Equiliberation." When the trio changed names to "Equiliberation," the song became the band's theme song in an after-the-fact manner.