Class Reunion

### *I guess you didn't know us well enough.*

*Class Reunion* is the first compilation record by *The Dropouts,* released on September 11th, 20XX. The record is a compilation of unreleased demos, songs, and rereleases of a few songs from *For The One And Only.* Following the release of said EP, Nick Barnett wanted to keep the momentum moving as he figured out what the future would look like for the band, and so instead of taking that time to sit down and write and self produce another entire project, Nick figured that now would be a good time to reach into the archives to release whatever he could to offer fans new music and new insight into the behind the scenes of the band.

While it wasn't an official new album, fans were excited nonetheless and it proved to be a nice side project during the period between what fans call the *Spirit Weak* era and the *Akrasia* era. The compilation's name is even a reference to *Spirit Weak*, playing off the high school theming and including some songs that were cut from said album. Even with the casual nature of the release, some of the songs went on to be incredibly popular and make their way into future projects in some shape or form.

## Planning Stages

Following the fan reception to *For The One and Only ,* Nick Barnett felt a renewed sense of confidence in both himself and The Dropouts as a project. He could tell that there was still interest, and the line up that played at the release show all had a shared passion for playing music together, feeling a great chemistry just from the one show. So in order to fulfil that creative drive easily, Nick and Nikki came up with the idea of pulling together unfinished odds and ends from the band's archives - finishing them up and putting them out as a compilation record, and with that released, the new line up would have new material to tour with. The future of the band was still a little uncertain, so this seemed like a good compromise for the time being.

The planning stages consisted mostly of Nick going through old hard drives, notebooks, and voice memos - deciding what he deemed worthy of pulling together for a release. During this time, they also had to make some small meetings with lawyers as they dealt with the issue of writing credits amongst the previous band members. Nikki had most of this covered, and ultimately, it was worked out that they had access to their entire catalogue with the exception of any songs that Nathan Taylor had worked on as a writer. Once the legal issues were settled, the rest of the process came much more smoothly, as Nick picked songs based on what would both be fun to play and what would play well with the strengths of the lineup that had come together - with Chris O'Brian involved, some songs that were originally written for *California Kids* even came up in consideration, but finally a 13 song tracklist was chosen and all that was left was to finish them all up.

## Production

Production for *Class Reunion* began on August 30th, 20XX - very soon after the release of *For The One and Only*, and the allotted time for production shared the short time frame, with the plan being to use the former Make Believe Studios until the lease was up, which ended very soon in the upcoming month. But, with everything planned as far as content went on the record, everyone was ready. Not to mention, with both the compilation nature of the album and the band's somewhat underground nature now, it took a lot of pressure off of the crew when recording, leading to a lot more "loose" sounding songs, the record wasn't trying to break any records or sell out any store shelves, it was just another passion project for themselves and their fans.

Nick Barnett took to producing the compilation, using the songs that had recorded demos as the basis for the new line up to rerecord with, while other songs had to be built from the ground up, only having lyrics and scribblings of arrangements done. It's easy to tell which songs had that demo ground work as Nick Barnett has admitted, "The songs that didn't already have a basis were a lot easier for us to just jump into and pull together as a group, making it feel more like a song that was a product of this lineup rather than us rerecording an old lineup's song. Nowadays, I'd go and make sure every song felt as finished as those, but with the time crunch we were on, we did what we could." He told SMILE PAINT in a recent interview.

The songs that had demos were *We Go Together* - Written originally for *Beggars Can't Be Choosers, Prom Night -* originally written for *Spirit Weak*, *Living Without You -* originally for *Here's To You*, *The Story Of Nothing* - originally written for *California Kids*, *Snoop Dog, Baby -* originally for *Party Down!, No Waves -* originally for *Rager at Jimmy's,* and finally *Cascade* and *Rainbow Connection* which were both a part of *For The One and Only,* borrowing *Rainbow Connection* for the finisher on a bigger project and putting *Cascade* out for an official release, where before it was only played live.

These songs were all knocked out first, with most parts already written and finished through the demos that they had, even rerecording *Rainbow Connection* in order to have it sound more in line with the rest of the album and not like just Nick playing all the parts which it previously was. Following that, the band came together to finish up the remaining songs that lived in notebooks and word docs, these being *Everybody That You Love* - it's original writing being dated back to around *Here's To You*, *Why, Oh Why, Oh Why (Oh Oh Oh Oh) -* dating back to *Price For Popularity, Everybody Needs Salvation -* The oldest song with the fewest notes, written sometime between *Cheer Up!* and *Party Down!*, *Never Trust A Man Without A Horribly Embarrassing Secret -* The most recent one, written for *It Isn't Dead*, and finally ending with *If I'm Still Broke By Christmas -* another song written around the time of *Here's To You.*

These songs turned into a collaborative effort and team building exercise for the new lineup, something that wasn't usually done for the band's albums, but with the time crunch and how little there were from some songs, Nick wanted and needed the help to get these remaining songs to a point where they could be released. Chris O'Brian became a big part of the songwriting process here, with him and Nick having worked together previously, they easily understood both of their ideas and of course Nikki Brown held down the fort, easily being able to fill in gaps in Nick's lyrics having been apart of the band for just as long - and this let the other members like Kevin Brockton and Miles Gonzalez to write their instrument parts, offering unique takes on ideas that Nick never could've thought of. The standout song that proves the uniqueness of the approach to this record is *Everybody Needs Salvation,* which ended up sounding unlike anything else the band had put out before, combining experiences between Nick and Chris, as Nikki takes over the song in a piano ballad before the heavy drums and guitar kick in making the song feel bigger than anything before.

The final days of production wrapped up around September 8th, only 3 days before the official release of the compilation. After finishing all the recording, their files were exported and Make Believe Records was officially shut down on September 9th - moved out, Nick Barnett finished mixing the next day, and as soon as it was ready, *Class Reunion* was released to the world.

## Reception

*Class Reunion* officially released on September 11th, 20XX - it was released primarily through the Dropouts website, where fans could go to download and donate any amount they wanted for the record. Fans found the compilation to be a mixed bag, some not understanding the entire behind the scenes of the band's production and so being confused with the ranging quality of the songs. Others were elated to find these songs that clearly stood out from previous eras of the band's history, and some songs became