Five Score and Seven Years Ago

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Five Score and Seven Years Ago
Studio album by Relient K
Released	March 6, 2007
Genre	Christian rock Pop punk
Label	Gotee Records Capitol Records
Producer(s)	Mark Lee Townsend Howard Benson
Relient K chronology
Apathetic EP (2005)	Five Score and Seven Years Ago (2007)

Five Score and Seven Years Ago is the fifth full-length album by the Christian rock band Relient K. It is to be released on March 6, 2007, and it is the first album by the band to feature bassist John Warne and guitarist Jon Schneck. It is also the first Relient K album released without longtime bassist Brian Pittman. Pittman did leave the band before the release of Mmhmm, but he still recorded most of that album with the band.

Songs off the band's new album, such as "Bite My Tongue" and "Devastation and Reform"[1], have been played by Relient K at concerts since June 2006. The band is also working on an eleven minute epic song for the album, which will be titled "Deathbed". The album is going to have fourteen tracks on it, according to the band's manager. [2]The band's manager also confirmed that the first single would be released for radio in January, and that the music video for it would be shot in December. [3] "Faking My Own Suicide", which was formerly a demo song by Matthew Thiessen and the Earthquakes, will be on this record as well. In addition to this song being announced in an XM radio interview with Matt Thiessen and Matt Hoopes, another song announced was "Must Have Done Something Right".

As with previous Relient K albums, this album will have various guest singers from other Christian rock bands, one of which being Jon Foreman of Switchfoot. Guest singers in the past have included John Davis[4], as well as John Warne when he was still with Ace Troubleshooter.

A single is to be released for the Christian market in mid to late November, according to the band's manager. It was also announced that the general market single would be released in January, along with a music video for the song. That song will be "Must Have Done Something Right", [5] which was released to iTunes November 28th, along with a bonus song titled "Fallen Man". [6] The first Christian radio single, which is "Forgiven" started playing on Christian radio stations around December 1.

The band's official site recently released more details about the album, saying, "The album, most of which was produced by Howard Benson in Los Angeles with three tracks completed thereafter with the band's longtime producer Mark Townsend in Nashville, is a departure of sorts for the pop-punk band. For starters, there are some love songs – happy ones. 'I always write about what I'm going through and I can't avoid the fact that I'm just really happy and there are some good things going on,' says lead singer/guitarist/pianist Matt Thiessen. This happy state of mind lights up the exuberant first single 'Must Have Done Something Right.' 'This song represents something that I've wanted to create for a long time,' he explains. 'It's not a political commentary or a tear jerking emotion-piece, it's just a feel good, fun song. Written at 3 a.m. with a smirk on my face, the song turned out to be something that you can tap your foot and smile to.'" [7]

Jesus Freak Hideout reported, "Although Five Score And Seven Years Ago's 14 songs are written in the first person, Thiessen has ventured beyond the confessional this time around. 'Plead the Fifth' and 'Deathbed,' the two songs that bookend the album, step into the shoes of a 19th century man with an intriguing conspiracy theory about Abraham Lincoln and an aging cancer patient respectively. But while Five Score And Seven Years Ago isn’t packed with the band's characteristic puns, Relient K has clearly not lost its quirky sense of humor. In 'Faking My Own Suicide,' the narrator takes a cue from the classic cult comedy Harold and Maude, hatching a faux suicide plot to get the object of his affection to realize that she really does love him. 'Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care,' which takes longer to say than to play, is a classic Relient K goofball aside. And while the 11-minute, 115-track 'Deathbed,' which features Switchfoot's Jon Foreman as a guest vocalist, has a somber setting as its title implies, the masterfully woven tale of a man’s life and last moments brims with keen observations and aural ironies. Five Score And Seven Years Ago marks Relient K’s first full-length album featuring bassist John Warne and Jon Schneck, who plays guitar, banjo, and bells – although the two appeared on the band’s Apathetic EP, released in late 2005. With lead guitarist Matt Hoopes and drummer Dave Douglas completing the lineup, Relient K is now a quintet with each of the members contributing vocals. But the biggest change was in the control booth, working with Howard Benson. “'was honestly pretty nervous,' confesses lead guitarist Matt Hoopes, 'We’d never really worked with any other producer beside Mark Townsend – he did everything from our first demo, all the way up to the last album. But it was a good experience working with Howard.' All kidding aside, Five Score And Seven Years Ago is an ambitious follow-up to mmhmm, Relient K’s first joint Gotee Records/Capitol release, which debuted at #15 on the Billboard 200 and at #1 on the internet chart in 2004."

Contents 1 Track listing 1.1 Single Rankings 2 Pre-production period 3 Notes and Trivia

[edit] Track listing

1. "Plead the Fifth"
2. "Come Right Out and Say It"
3. "I Need You"
4. "The Best Thing"
5. "Forgiven"
6. "Must Have Done Something Right"
7. "Give"
8. "Devastation and Reform"
9. "I'm Taking You With Me"
10. "Faking My Own Suicide"
11. "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care"
12. "Bite My Tongue"
13. "Up and Up"
14. "Deathbed"

[edit] Single Rankings

Song	Year	Hot Digital Songs	U.S. Pop 100	U.S. Hot 100	CCM Charts	Mediabase	Album
Must Have Done Something Right	2006	-	-	-	-	#157	Five Score And Seven Years Ago
Forgiven	2006	-	-	-	-	-	Five Score And Seven Years Ago

[edit] Pre-production period

Due to being signed with Capitol Records, the band was given the blessing of a pre-production period for the first time. Guitarist Matt Hoopes stated that this was a good thing, citing how the band members don't all live in Ohio anymore. Matt Thiessen and Dave Douglas still live in Ohio, but Hoopes and Jon Schneck live in Nashville, Tennessee. John Warne, meanwhile, lives in Denver, Colorado. The pre-production period gave the band more advantages for recording the album.

While posting on the band and the recording process, a fan on CMCentral.com said, "They recorded for a couple weeks in LA with Howard Benson. This is the first time RK will use a different producer, as Mark Lee Townsend has recorded everything they've released up to this point. (Matt Thiessen has co-produced on a few things). They finished the album with Townsend at his studio."

The band's long-time producer Mark Lee Townsend also spoke of the album being recorded on his site. He produced the first track and the last track of the album. [8] In one of his blogs, he said, "It was a great day in the studio with Relient K today. We've been working on a song for the record that is a bit of an epic in many ways with a ton of tracks and instruments. It's going to be pretty special when it all gets recorded and mixed. We are almost done with lead vocals on it and will be putting live strings on it next week, along with a few other parts that are a bit unconventional to pop punk. I'll keep you posted. The weather has been spectacular this last week and it's great for shooting hoops on breaks from the studio. Based on what I have heard from the tracks in L.A. and what we are doing here, the new album will be amazing."

Townsend also said later, "It's been a great week back in the studio with Relient K. We are working on a few album cuts and some additional acoustic versions of songs on the record. This week we got drums and bass done on the songs and will spend the next couple weeks filling out the rest of the songs. Matt is still finishing up some of the writing on a ballad we've been assembling and it's going to be an amazing track when we get done. It's one of those tracks where you just start putting it together, and it's very bare bones right now, but you know it's going to turn out really special. I heard a couple of the test mixes on some of the songs done in LA and it sounds fantastic and 'famous' IMHO."

Townsend also spoke of the epic track that he and Matt Thiessen are working on, which is to include many instruments and clock in at eleven minutes long. Townsend said, "Well, the Relient K album is pretty much done at this point. It's a fantastic piece of music from top to bottom and I'm sure the fans will love it. I'm sure they will have something posted on their MySpace or website with details and a bit of music. Poor Matt T had to work his butt off with me the last week as we added a bunch of instruments to the 11 minute epic we were working on. Matt dusted off his horn playing skills from high school and played trumpet, trombone, french horn, and baritone on the song. We clocked in at 115 tracks including live strings, horns, a bunch of mellotron stuff, 3 different drumkits, ukulele, sleigh bells, micro moog and more. We had fun working on the track with all the instruments, but it was a lot of work and I think we are all glad that it is done. JR McNeely mixed it over a couple of days and it sounds amazing. I think we all are stoked about it."

[edit] Notes and Trivia

• While all of the rumored titles for the album were declared false almost immediately after they started circulating, many fans originally believed that the album would be called Audio Irrelevance.
• This album and the first album from Inhale Exhale, which is entitled The Lost. The Sick. The Sacred., were originally to be released on the same day. This is significant because Brian Pittman now plays for Inhale Exhale. Therefore, as the first album from his new band is being released, Relient K would have been releasing their first album without him at the same time. However, the album's original release date of November 21, 2006 was changed in September 2006.
• Matt Thiessen originally found out about the release date change on September 7, 2006. His first public announcement of it was September 8, 2006, at Rock the Universe 2006, a Christian rock festival in Universal Studios, Orlando.
• According to Thiessen at a recent concert in Cleveland, the new official release date for Five Score and Seven Years Ago was going to be February 6, 2007. Thiessen said at a recent concert in Pittsburgh, PA during the Nintendo Fusion Tour, that Five Score and Seven Years Ago would not be released until March, 2007. The band's manager confirmed the date of March 6, 2007 on the band's message board.
• Matt Thiessen didn't originally want to put the song "Bite My Tongue" on the record, but Matt Hoopes said he talked him into it. "Bite My Tongue" ended up being the first song off of the record that the band played live. It was played, live, for the very first time at Atlanta Fest.

http://relientk.forumsunlimited.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=160112&view=findpost&p=3850692]

Relient K
Matt Thiessen – Matt Hoopes – Dave Douglas – John Warne – Jon Schneck
Discography
Albums: Relient K – The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek – Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...but Three Do – Mmhmm - Five Score and Seven Years Ago
EPs: 2000 A.D.D. – The Creepy EP – Employee of the Month EP – The Vinyl Countdown – Apathetic EP
Other: All Work and No Play (Demo) – Open Mic Karaoke: Relient K, Vol. 1 (Karaoke CD) - Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand (Christmas CD) - The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek: Gold Edition (Re-release) – Two Lefts Don't Make a Right...but Three Do: Gold Edition (Re-release)
Singles: Pressing On - My Girlfriend - Chap Stick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry - The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything – Be My Escape – Who I Am Hates Who I've Been – Must Have Done Something Right - Forgiven