Hey! Welcome to this weeks Tag Line! I’m excited to chat every week about stuff with ya! So lets get to it. This week…
– Chasing Your Passion
– Being a New Dad
– New CD
– ‘Days Like These’ Video
– Chris Daughtry Incident
– Working Out
– Random Thoughts
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Passion. Funny word. It gets used a lot by people who don’t seem to know what it means. I mean, we all know the romantic meaning, but I’m talking the life meaning. People will say they are passionate about something but then you never see them do anything that proves that. I’m passionate about life. My life is pretty blessed, but to be fair, I’ve worked hard for a long time to be where I am today. I have a great family, I get to do what I love for a living, I get to travel and see awesome things and meet amazing people and find all the nooks and crannies of life that elude many. But I get to do that all because of my passion. Because I wake up everyday without any fear of failing…with knowing I’m gonna go after what I want. Music and physical fitness are my two personal passions (besides family of course), and everyday I do something for each one of them to make them better…to grow. But I see SO many people everyday on Social Media & personally that talk about how unhappy they are and yet do nothing to change it or worse, contribute to their situation even more. I don’t get it. I’ve unfriended folks for it. Their negative energy is just not something I want in my life. SO….whats your passion. I want you to think about it for a minute. Then think about what you are doing to achieve that passion. Thats my challenge to you this week. Its a retouch on an old blog I wrote years ago, but its still valid and worth a revisit. Tell me…whats your passion…what MOVES you in life. The more importantly, what are you doing about it. Everyday I post #LiveWithIntention….so whats yours?
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So as you all know, I’m a new Dad to an awesome little girl named Harmony Grace Taglieri! Laureen had a little bit of a difficult pregnancy, but in the end, she was born happy an healthy on April 27th at 5:16pm. She’s six weeks old now and I have to say that I couldn’t be happier with being a dad. I always heard that ‘it’ll change your life’ stuff from SO many people and never believed it. Well, guess what. The SECOND I laid eyes on her, I was done…over…finished. lol. She owned me like nothing ever before. Its been a humbling and life changing experience. I’m SO excited to be a dad and can’t wait to show her all that life has to offer. I want her to grow up knowing there are no boundaries and you don’t have to follow the ‘plan’ society hands you. I hope I teach her to find her own way, look for new things and as I always say, Live With Intention. I hope she finds her passion in life and rocks it to its fullest.
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SO…’Days Like These’. My 12th release in 15 years is coming on August 19th…which happens to also be MY BIRTHDAY!! Its my little celebration to myself for my Days Like These. This is the first release that i’ve truly done start to finish in my studio. Lucky #9 had two songs I didnt write, Southern Paradise was mostly done in Nashville & my Best Of was a collection of already recorded stuff with just two new songs. For Days Like These, I wrote or co-wrote every song on this one, and every song was started and finished in my studio. IN the process, we used 10 studios from 10 cities all around the country with some of the best players in the biz. I’ve been fortunate in my career to be able to work with some amazing people, and this time I added a childhood idol, one of my favorite drummers, and several good friends to that list. I was fortunate enough to get my childhood drumming idol, Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, John Fogarty), to play drums on a song, as well as uber talented drummer Rich Redmond (from Jason Aldean) to play on a track. If you don’t know who these guys are…google them. lol. I also was fortunate enough to have long time friends Keith LuBrant, Lee Turner, Alan Jax Bowers, Chad Cunningham, Joe Gilder, Greg Juliano, Sean Mormelo, Eric Ragno & Kim Kostas lend their amazing talents to the EP. I also wrote songs with Joe Gilder, Rayen Bechere, Bobby James, Tyrone Noonan & Matt Colligan. I’m blessed to have so many amazing people bring their gifts to this release. I am really in love with these songs and can’t wait to get them out to you!!
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So we are shooting a video for the lead single ‘Days Like These’ and I want you all involved! We are asking anyone who wants to be in the video to shoot footage of themselves singing along to the song having fun on their days like these! Hit my Facebook page up for all the details and get in on it!! Go here https://www.facebook.com/events/1497684797112807/
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So, Chris Daughtry apparently had to apologize for…what? He performed on Fox & Friends on the D-Day Anniversary and after his performance was asked to do another song. He was late for his next performance and declined to play saying he was ‘off the clock’. Well, apparently this offended EVERYONE in the world. REALLY? People got nasty in their criticism of him saying he was disrespectful to the troops….ummm, this is a band that has toured for the troops and done shows all over the world for them. I think as a society, we need to chill out with the ‘getting offended’ over every little thing. Chris put up a big apology, but frankly, I don’t think he had anything to apologize for. People need to stop with the overly sensitive crap. Its annoying as hell.
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I’m back on a heavy gym/workout schedule. I have 3 triathlons coming up this year in July, Sept & December and I want to make sure that I’m in better shape than I was at my last tri. I just ran the Run To Remember Boston Half Marathon in May, and while not as fast as I wanted to be, I finished the race, so that felt awesome. I have some nice solid but attainable goals for my races and fitness this year, so I’ll be working hard to make them happen! Feel free to ask me about working out or weight loss. I think SO many people are terribly misinformed on both subjects. I’d love to help anyone who needs it.
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Random:
– I’m SO glad to be back in Key West. I’m playing shows this whole month at Irish Kevins and Lazy Gecko. The first 5 shows were awesome and set the tone for what i hope will be a great month!
– I havent watched TV in 8 days…and frankly, I’m not really missing it! I’ve been so consumed with gigs, Cd release stuff and working out, that I havent really cared.
– Apparently, all of us bald guys look the same. I’ve heard that I look like at least 5 different people this week…of course, all bald celebs.
– My daughter projectile pooped and pee’d on me during her first diaper changes, and now she’s projectile puked on my wife the other day. I guess we’ve completed the ‘long distance body fluid trifecta’ finally. Glad we can put that to rest. Amazing what comes out of a 6 week old body.
– I drink about 2 gallons of water a day…just saying. Its good for you. Do it.
– For some reason at the moment, I can only do shows in my Adidas Clima Cool sneaks. Everything just feels wrong working my pedal board.
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Well, thanks for reading along. I’ll be posting these blogs every Tuesday from now, so I hope you tune in, chime in and help make this something fun and cool.

Don’t forget to click ‘like’ on the blog and follow me so you’ll know when I publish these each week!
Thanks!
John
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#LiveWithIntention #DaysLikeThese #TrainIntense

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Hey all! I realized I havent written a blog in a while…ok, 5 years, but who is counting. lol. Life has been a crazy ride for me in that time. Those of you that keep up with me on Facebook and Twitter know most of it, but I think its time to get back to writing and staying in touch more this way. 

So…what have I been doing for five years? Well, Lots. I released 4 new projects…’FOREWARD (with my old band TAG), ‘Lucky #9′, a Best Of CD, and ‘Southern Paradise’. They all had great success and solidified the reasons I am still doing what I do after all this time. I also moved from NJ to MA, built a house, had a baby named Harmony Grace, started and disbanded my own band, joined and left another band (Long story…lol), landed a gig in Key West 6 months a year, and more. I had a #1 single on Amazon, two Top 5 Cds there, charted on Billboard as well as overseas and have been able to still wake up everyday and make music for a living. I’m very lucky and blessed to have the life I have.

So I was thinking, and decided that I’m going to get back to blogging and writing more in general. I’ll be posting a blog each week on Tuesdays. It’ll be a recap of my week, random thoughts, music, being a dad, and other things that have gotten my attention throughout the week. From silly to serious, nothing will be off limits. I would love for you to be as interactive as you want with me on this and kind of have a weekly running chat with all of us. Even maybe a weekly fan question part where I’ll answer whatever you ask me. The person who gets their question in the blog that week gets a free download or something. We’ll figure that out!

I’ll be doing a redesign on this page (anyone want to help with that?), announcing a new name for this blog…(Suggestions welcome!), I have a new EP coming this summer, lots of shows, a new baby and more to talk about. So start watching. Next Tuesday will be the first installment (not counting this one of course!) During the week, if you have something you think I should bring up, send it to me and I’ll work it in. 

I hope to hear from a lot of you and look forward to a fun weekly blog!

John 

Hey! I’m working hard in the studio today on what will be track 2 of the next Lives EP. The song is called “Something Easy”. It’s bascially Cate’s only song for the next EP, which is based around Max’s life following book one. I wrote this with Brad Whitley.

The song is a bit different then the first EP. And I think this EP will be more straight up rock ‘n roll then Volume I. The first two songs are going in that direction.

So, “Something Easy” picks up with Cate on the train after leaving Demming. It basically goes through her thought process and how shes just wants life to be easy.

I used my Les Paul and Les Paul Jr. exclusively on this track. Plugged into my Marshall amp on the clean channel and driven hard to overdrive it. So it’s not a distortion as much as a nice clean overdive. I have a Marshall JTM60, with and extension cabinet. So I mic’d the amp with an SM57 and an MXL V63M, the extension cab got a MXL 1006, and then I used an MXL991 pencil mic about 4 feet from the amp directly in front for some room ambience. So each take was four tracks. I used the Les Paul for the rhythm tracks left and right, as well as the lead, on the neck pickup. For the intro and chorus guitar tag line, i used my Les Paul Jr. Gave it a slightly different tone to help it stand out in the track. The lead was on the Les Paul, with the Amp on the lead channel and really driving it hard, and using the neck pickup. Gave it a nice round tone.

The bass went direct as well as through my Hartke amp which i mic’d with a kick drum mic for a nice thick sound. The drums were fun to play on this one. A very open losse sound on them. Not processed at all. Just a bit of the room mic for some life.

Vocally, i went into my Sterling Audio ST65 tube mic, through a tube pre-amp, into my dbx 166XL for some light compression and then a little more in the box, a little delay and thats about it. Vocals are very clean, and nearly dry. I LOVE the way this mic makes my voice sound.

So, all thats really left to do is get the keys laid down. Lee J. Turner is going to be doing the keys. Lee lives in Nashville and is a good friend of mine who has played with many top names. He’s currently touring with Darius Rucker. Lee played keys on “Make A Mistake With Me” off the first Lives EP. I love his style and that he has real vintage Hammond and Wurlitzer organs. The sound cant be beat.

So once the keys are down, it’ll be done. Then just a good mix and we are set!

OK, well thats about it. I’ll be working on After Farewell a lot this weekend, so I’ll hopefully have some more detail for you on that in a few days!

Thanks for reading!
J.T. 

Hey all, I’ve been writing studio notes for the new EP. I’ve never done this before, and it’s pretty fun. I’ve posted them on the LIVES message board, but I thought I’d condense them here as well into a blog…so here goes!

SONG 1 – After Farewell
Brad and I have penned the first track for Volume II. It’s called “After Farewell”. It picks the story up right where the book left off and when Cate and Max part. Its a rocker and I will start recording it this coming weekend.
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Hey all. I’m getting set to work on this song in the studio. I’m still pondering aboutn the chorus as i’m not sure that it’s strong enough. So there may be some changes lyrically, but musically, i think i’s set, so I’m going to get moving on the recording this week!
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Ok, so the drums, bass and basic rhythm guitars are done! I spent a few hours today working on the song and I’m really happy with it so far.

The drums were done in one take which always makes me happy. I played a little differently than I normally do to get a bit more of a groove into the song. I played around with how i worked the hi-hat a bit and like how it came out as well as some of the fills. For the bass on this one, I went direct and skipped the amp. This has always worked well for me. My bass has a great tone when i go direct. I ran it through my Art TPSII Tube preamp and then through my dbx166xl for some compression at a 4:1 setting. Makes it nice and round. Then a little more compression in the box to smooth it even more. I add an EQ cutting everything below 120hz with a nice slope so it doesnt sit too heavy on the kick drum.

For guitars so far I used my Les Paul straight into my Marshall JTM60 with a similar mic set up as I used on the “Something Easy” recording. I mic’d the amp with an MXL V63M and a Shure SM51. The extension cabinet was mic’d with an MXL 1006 and then I used an MXL991 pencil about 4 feet away for some room ambience. I recorded a seperate left and right track to make it nice and thick sounding. The Marshall was on the clean channel driven on 10 and the master volume about half way up.

Thats as far as I got for today. But I’ll be back on it tomorrow afternoon to work on some more guitar parts. After I get those done, I’ll update this thread and give you some more details
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HEY! Ok, so the song is for the most part done! I spent a good part of the last two days working on lead guitars, fills and taste parts, as well as lead and backing vocals.

For the guitars, I used several different pieces to color the song from fills inside the verses to nice intro and connector fills as well. In the 2nd & 4th verses, i added a cool double plucked, two note riff that runs on the beat…really gives the ear something to find in the mix. I also wound up adding it to the outro of the song and it will ultimately fade out on it.

For the vocals, i sang everything into my Sterling Audio ST66 Tube mic…LOVE that thing. I sang all the verses first, then went to the Bparts and then the chorus parts. I was struggling with the actual lyrics in the chorus. Brad and I wrote what we thought was a really cool chorus, and musically it worked well, but on second and third looks, singing it was awkward. So i re-wrote the lyrics and structure. I used some of what we had already. I would up doing sort of a call and answer with a nice 3-part harmony doing the call part and answering in a scruffy, throaty voice. I’m really happy with how it came out.

For the bridge, Brad had come up with a cool riff when we wrote the song, so I took that idea, and expanded on it building the riff with each pass into a 3-part guitar harmony underneath a lead. About half way through the band kicks back in full and the solo rocks out. I like it a lot.

All thats really left is to have Lee lay some keyboards on it. Hopefully we’ll get some of that done next week. I start travelling Tuesday for 4 weeks, so I want to get the songs to Lee before I leave so he can work on them and have the parts done when i get back.

I’m going to start to put some daily’s together to let you hear what I’m up to!

OK, now it’s time to get to writing the rest of the EP! I hope that you are enjoying these studio updates! Let me know if you have any questions…thanks.
J.T.

Hey everyone. I’m finally here on word press and starting my blogging! I plan on blogging a LOT from now on and will keep you all in the loop on everything thats going on from my life, music career and just plain old random stuff. Hope you enjoy.