When John Treanor contacted me to join Somewherecold Records, I was astonished. Why would such an incredible band like Tombstones in Their Eyes invite me to be involved in their amazing art? Well, they did and it’s been wonderful and the start of a new friendship. This wonderful surprise has now developed into the official release of their demos. Here’s what TITE says about demos and their open process with their fans.

“Tombstones In Their Eyes started when two old friends, John Treanor and James Cooper, reconnected after not seeing each other for 20 plus years. James lives in New York and John in Los Angeles, but they decided to try writing some songs together. The songs were written in Garageband (and then Logic Pro later on) and the projects were shared via Dropbox. The first songs weren’t great, but they kept on going and the songs got better. John did the songwriting, for the most part, and James, who has “producer ears” helped guide the songs, as well as adding digital drums. The project, or “band” was named Tombstones In Their Eyes, after a line from the song “The Pusher” (written by Hoyt Axton, but made famous by Steppenwolf). They started posting the demos on Soundcloud and eventually had enough for John to put together a real band with some local LA friends and go into the studio to record the first record Sleep Forever. Things went on from there, but the songwriting and demo posting has never stopped.

The demos have always been a big part of the TITE experience. As of this writing, there are around 75 of them online. As songs are written and reach a point where John is excited enough by the song, it is posted to Soundcloud, warts and all. Not all of the songs ever make it past the demo stage to the recording studio. Some of these demos have a rough “magic” that we weren’t always able to reproduce in the studio, and that is why we are going to release some of our favorites, some of the ones that we just listened to over and over, and also a few that never made it to the studio for some reason. Volume 1 is the first of these limited releases and there should be others to follow. These are demos, so there are some audio glitches here and there, some out of tune vocals here and there, but we hope you can look past that and enjoy them for what they are, moments in time.”

Tombstones in Their Eyes: Demos Vol 1 comes out September 25th with only 30 physical copies.