This is a hard song to write about. This is primarily because its literally a good 6 years old now. I wrote this song during the summer before I became very sick. Things were very dramatic for me back then and little events seemed like the end of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out I was certifiably crazy during that summer.
Dirt Hero #10 was one of the first songs I wrote that I was proud of after Sub Ojec. Oddly enough the song has never really found a home on an album or anywhere else which is why I’m so happy to see it have a home on the C/Fe compliation.
Some of my songs start out as a name or a riff. Dirt Hero #10 started out as a file named dn10 and a beat. Actually quite a few beats. See I had probably four or five songs that were under 3 minutes long that I didn’t like but I liked the beats to. And at the time I was coming off a benge of being into tech step drum ‘n’ bass artists such as Cause 4 Concern and Bad Company (aka EIB), so I was really wanting to do some industrial drum ‘n’ bass. The Gridlock side project Dryft also very much had some inspiration in this. And thus came the creation of the opening beat which I beat mixed with itself. The song really wrote itself after that and I did the EQ work.
The name changed a few times. Part of me almost wishes I had changed the name to dna#10 but Dirt Hero #10 has actual meaning. The idea behind the name is Dirt Hero brings to mind the Anti-Hero. The Anti-Hero has surged in popularity over the decades to the extent that story telling has become a bit predictable. And real life imitating art produces a lot of people who want to be seen as dark and animalistic and unpredictable thus emulating their favored Anti-Hero. But in all the fake ones there has to be a real one, one who isn’t devoted to image but is thrown into those extrordinary circumstances to change their persona and life. So the title makes the reference to the tenth one who might be the real deal.
I also want to share the first time I knew that other people would enjoy the song as much as I have. My best friend at the time and I were driving out of town while I was sick to visit a couple of our ex’s oddly enough. I didn’t realize how sick the medication I had that afternoon would make me that evening. I was in the process of involuntarily passing out when I pulled out a mix CD I had done with the track on it and put it in the player. I apologized to my friend and told him that I wanted to listen to this track I wrote. Evidently this apology came out as something like “Hm frmmm ugmm emmm negmmm fargle.” See a few minutes later he was telling me how badass it was and asking me what band it was taking the shot in the dark guess of Converter. Although I was out of it, his reaction was definitely sincere and to this day the best compliment I have received on the song.
Anyway there you have it, my synopsis and thoughts on Dirt Hero #10. I’m actually a little sad this will be the last of these posts but everything has to end.
