Spread the Feeling

SPREAD THE FEELING is the sixth or seventh studio LP by the Pernice Brothers and my 17th or so in general. I’m honestly not sure. I don’t keep track. All I know is that if I play one song off each album at a gig, it’s a long show. I recorded a full length Pernice Brothers record a few years back, but ditched it after it was mixed. Scrapping it had everything to do with me not liking the songs. The playing, the recording and mixing were fantastic to my ears. After letting the mixes sit for a while I revisited them for giggles. Still no dice, but there were a couple songs that were really good and deserved to be saved, unlike my soul. I holed up with engineer/musician extraordinaire Liam Jaeger in Toronto, and we reworked/mixed the songs worth the time. Then we kept recording new songs until SPREAD THE FEELING was done. (I am toying with releasing all my rejected recording on a double CD called SHITTY SONGS. For every copy you take, I give you $0.87. It’s the future winning model in the streaming age.) Eric Menck came up with the title. I think it was a peanut butter ad campaign slogan. If it wasn’t, it should be. I don’t know if SPREAD THE FEELING is a return to some kind of form. That’s for other people to decide. To be honest, I write all kinds of songs all the time. (You should hear my klezmer-meets-mariachi number called “Who Put The Mole in My Kugel” It’s from my WEST SIDE STORY knockoff musical my wife has brilliantly titled EL SID.) It might come down to my mood at the time as to which songs make a record. This record definitely has the most “muscle” of all my records. (That’s not saying much if you compare it to say, PINE BOX by the Scud Mountain Boys.) The playing is pretty nuts. Liam Jaeger and James Walbourne are two of the finest guitarists out there. Peyton Pinkerton is a true genius. It should be no surprise to learn that he’s an exceptional painter. All three players wowed me at every turn. Both Patrick Berkery and Ric Menck played drums. They are as good as it gets in my opinion. Neko Case and Pete Yorn were extremely generous with their voices. I’m grateful to both for elevating the songs. Oh, and my brother Bob is on there too, as always. The record was recorded and mixed in Boston, Toronto and Washington State. What’s the single? Probably “The Devil And The Jinn” or “Mint Condition” or “Lullaby.” I have my favorite songs, but they are almost never the ones most people like. For instance, this song didn’t make the cut, but the chorus is pretty badass: Who put the mole in my kugel? Who put the struggle in my strife? Who put the mole in my kugel? Because mole brought the kugel back to life. JP, August, 2019, Toronto

Joe Pernice waited three years between the first Pernice Brothers album, 1998's Overcome by Happiness, and the second, 2001's The World Won't End, during which he released two side-project albums filled with songs he declared weren't up to his standards for the group.