BEHIND “THE WHISKEY BET”

The Whiskey Bet was written as a dark western themed fantasy about the proverbial, ill conceived trading of a soul to the Devil for an unexplained benefit. It is a nod to Stephen Kings, The Dark Towers series mixed with the often mentioned metaphorical Robert Johnsons Crossroads song/legend.
The songs protagonist is forever on the run, haunted and continually riding his faithful steed from town to town. They are never able to settle and have accepted their fate. It is not explained what has been bet upon or traded for the purgatory, as the song is generally illusionary about making choices and having to forever live with the outcome.
This song was conceived as a stand alone piece, but has now been incorporated into a trilogy to widen the story. The preceding and following songs describe a lead up, acceptance of the “bet” and moving forward under dire circumstances as we all must.
The Whiskey Bet was recorded live in just a few takes as we had worked it out in practice. The songs lead in, with Cmacs Mustang bass through an Ampeg B15R and MADMikeD’s drum set provide a pseudo western horse gallop rhythm. I used a Telecaster with phaser effect and MADMiss flavored her Stratocaster sound with a bit of tremolo to give the heady left right stereo guitar tracks. We used late ‘70’s Silverface Fender amps (Champ and Princeton Reverb) with plenty of reverb.

-C.Brooks

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