Behind The Songs - We Know There's More

Many of the songs that make up Third World Sun’s first CD took a circuitous route to get to where they are today. Indeed most of them even continue to evolve since we recorded them as we continue to play them live. Because of this, I wanted to document how these songs came about before I forget and it all just becomes a blur. - Carhart 

Stream "We Know There's More" from SoundCloud 

We Know There’s More (Johnson, Driml, Carhart, Carhart) 

This song started out with lyrics by Lori. Which is why there’s no particular rhyme to them and why the verses and choruses are essentially the same throughout. That was Lori’s worship song mentality. She was free-flowy and didn’t really care about structure. And she liked to keep the words simple so people could join in easily. Scott and I had originally written totally different chords for this song and therefore the melody was also quite different. But it wasn’t doing it for Lori. Before taking a break from rehearsal, she mentioned off-handedly, “What if we did something that was like The Go-Gos?” While she was gone, Scott burst out with the song’s signature riff which he thought was similar to the Go-Go’s “We Got The Beat” (it’s probably not really that similar). Launch Pad recorded it with Lori on vocals. The version Third World Sun made has a bit of a surf vibe, which we played up on the CD but we typically play it with more distortion live. Also, for the TWS version, I had to change the melody in a couple places in order to sing it. Lori’s range had a much higher ceiling than mine. But overall, I think we’re true to the spirit of the song and it’s a popular one live. In 2015, We Know There’s More went on rotation at the Long Beach Airport.

Behind The Songs - Lori's Gone

Many of the songs that make up Third World Sun’s first CD took a circuitous route to get to where they are today. Indeed most of them even continue to evolve since we recorded them as we continue to play them live. Because of this, I wanted to document how these songs came about before I forget and it all just becomes a blur. - Carhart 

Stream "Lori's Gone" from SoundCloud 

Lori’s Gone (Johnson, Driml, Carhart)

Possibly our only downer, I wrote this not even a month after Lori passed away. At the time, I thought I was writing it for her but I realized later that I was writing it for myself. It’s a very real, heartfelt and raw look at loss. I specifically crafted the lyrics so it doesn’t have to be about death. It could be about a traumatic break up or divorce as well. There used to be a long bridge that we jettisoned. But otherwise, we pretty much play it as I wrote it. As time has passed and the healing process has settled over me, I don’t feel the need to play this song much anymore. I’m certainly no longer where I was when I wrote it. It was a therapy song for me. The guys in the band, however, like the song and consider it one of our stronger pieces. So we keep it around and play it every once in awhile. Even though we all agree it’s an important song for all of these reasons, many times we find that it doesn’t really fit well in our mostly upbeat sets. So we frequently leave it out.

Behind The Songs - Hostage

Many of the songs that make up Third World Sun’s first CD took a circuitous route to get to where they are today. Indeed most of them even continue to evolve since we recorded them as we continue to play them live. Because of this, I wanted to document how these songs came about before I forget and it all just becomes a blur. - Carhart 

Stream "Hostage" from SoundCloud

Hostage (Johnson, Driml, Carhart)

Although many of our songs predate this song, I consider Hostage to be the first Third World Sun-specific song. A couple weeks after Lori passed away, Scott and I talked about whether we were going to still play together. I had showed him some stuff I had written without Lori and Scott liked it. So he came over and I thought we were going to start going over some of that stuff. Instead, Scott had this grungy guitar riff that he threw at me. I had been heavily listening to Duran Duran at the time, so I did my best to come up with an upbeat, melodic John Taylor-style bass line to go with it (I failed, by the way… as much as we like this bass line, it’s nowhere as cool as John Taylor’s playing). At that moment, we realized that we were going to have a different sound moving forward. Lori’s presence was a softening influence. Without it, we were edgier without even trying to be. I sat down and wrote the lyrics on the spot. It’s about the people who want to hold you back. The negative people. The back-biters and the haters who might pretend on the surface that they want you to succeed but they really want to see you fail. And it’s about the flaky people that you find yourself counting on as you attempt to follow your dreams and what you’ve been called to do. Mike joined Scott and I a week later and the song gelled the first time we played it. Third World Sun was born (although we didn’t name the band for a few more weeks). All of the Launch Pad songs that we carried over to TWS were re-tooled in the shadow of Hostage.