-STORY ABOUT THE SONG-
When I first started writing Brain Freeze, I wanted to try to put into words the frustration I felt from being in love and not being able to get myself to do anything about it. The words to this song came super easy for me. Within about the first 30 minutes, I had already written the first two verses, the first chorus, and the first two lines of the third verse. Then I got tired and ended up falling asleep on the couch in the bonus where I was writing from. Three hours later, I woke up and wrote two more lines, completing the third verse. I then quit for the day because I had to go eat and finish reading some short story… my homework for a class I had to go to later that night.

The next day, Wednesday, September 10, 1997, I went to school again, Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, and ended up working on another song - Hanging On. I wrote most of it that morning, and finished it later that afternoon. Later that evening, I pulled out Brain Freeze and started working on that again. Nine minutes later, I thought I was done. I had finished the 4th verse and the last chorus: "All day long, your thought bombards my brain… Your eyes are like the skies stars / No that sounds so lame." But I questioned whether I was really done; I felt I wanted to add more dimensions. So I read the lyrics and sang the tune in my head, and I was then sure I wanted to keep going with the song. I was uncertain as to what to write next or how the tune would go, but I thought up something quick and started to write. As I wrote the new part, I wasn’t sure I really liked the new tune, and felt the new lyrics were too weak. So about 20 minutes later, I stopped writing.

The new part bugged me. Giving in to my frustrations, I pushed Brain Freeze aside and, over the next two years, moved on to other songs. Because it was so easy to write, I didn’t take Brain Freeze too seriously. But when our show at Chain Reaction arrived, the song somehow ended up on our set list. It was at that point I realized I had to face the music, and finish the song.

Chain Reaction was our first real club show. We had played lots of little shows before that, even the Sunset Strip’s legendary Los Angeles Whisky, but Chain Reaction was the first show we were actually officially scheduled and advertised to play at, and had real tickets for. As our show approached, I began to think of potential lyrics for Brain Freeze again. Two nights before the show, as I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed, the lyrics for the intro to the song’s ending popped in my head: "If only / You felt the same / Well maybe someday / Maybe someday." I wrote those lines down, and then went to bed.

As I lay in bed awake the next morning with Brain Freeze playing in my head, I tried to think of what lines should come next. A few minutes later, the line "For now I’ll / Just sit here and dream / My whole life away," came to me. I actually thought of that concept, maybe even that exact line, the night before, after thinking of the “If only” line. However, I wasn’t sure about it at the time. But that morning, I sang it and liked it, so it stayed. Another idea I thought of the day before was to say something about pulling out my hair thinking of her. I wasn’t sure how to say it though. But that morning while I was taking a shower and getting ready for school and the song played in my head, I thought of: "As I pull out my hair / Dreaming of you / Thinking of me." I was proud of myself because I thought those were pretty catchy lines. Then I went to school.

The next day, Thursday, November 18, 1999, the morning of the show, I sang the song in my head again and came up with the line "The thought was beautiful / The thought was fun / But now I realize the dream is gone / A cruel cruel scheme love pulled on me." I kind of forgot the tune, so I played it on guitar to make sure everything fit right and sounded fine. It did. Then, just a few minutes from noon, as I sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out the closing lines to this song that took me over two years to finish, I had finished. All at once, the last lines came to me: "Oh naïve heart, I let you lead / And now you’re crushed and suffering / I should have known, I’m so sorry." And with that, I was finally done.

Mario practiced the lyrics over and over, but he wasn’t sure if he’d remember the tune, words, chord changes, etc. good enough to be able to play the song with confidence at Chain Reaction later that night. So to solve our little dilemma, I taped the lyric sheet to my hi-hat stand so I’d be ready to jump in if Mario happened to mess up. A plan like that sounds like no big deal when it is in the works. But in reality, it was just a recipe for disaster. When our moment of truth had finally arrived that night, Mario ended up losing the tune, and forgetting the words. I panicked because I was in the middle of singing my background vocals, and realized I had to immediately activate our emergency evacuation plan. Heroically launching our plan into action, I intertwined mumbles of random words with moans of clueless hums, killing time while scowering the flailing page of lyrics through flailing arms (both blissfully dancing together to the beat of my drums), in desperate search for the words of salvation that mischievously hid behind the dim room of dark colored lights. Unable to find my place, but too ignorant to give up, I played on, convincing myself that no one had noticed. But it was no use. My denial was only a misleading illusion. Not only was I just as lost as Mario, but I also ended up throwing everything else off. And by the time we had given up our loosing attempts at redemption, the song was pretty much mutilated, and our first round at publicly playing Brain Freeze was ended in tragedy.

What you hear on this album is what we attempted to accomplish live that horrific night. For those of you who were there to witness the disaster in person, I’m sure you will agree that this CD version of Brain Freeze is a lot tamer than the original recipe we once served. And for those of you that were lucky enough not to make it, just take my word for it - it’s better. -Marc Morcos
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