Singled Out: The Heavy Pets' Song for John

About a year after John's death in 2006 I felt compelled to write a song about his life and our friendship. John McCann was a good childhood friend of mine. He's one of the first guys I ever jammed with and probably the first friend that I ever attempted songwriting with. In fact, the lyric "remember when everything was just gold or grey" refers to a lyric that he wrote for one of the first tunes we worked on together. He was an Insane genius type, a great lyricist. He was mad about music and literature and his knowledge of both far surpassed anyone I had ever met.

Looking back now, it's easy to see that he is responsible for introducing me to all of the great music that would grow to influence me so deeply in my life. He was kind of a mentor to me in that respect. I think the song, in part, is an attempt to show him how grateful I am for that.

In early 2010 I was in Mill Valley California working on the album "Swim Out Past The Sun" when we got word from our producer that David Grisman was interested in laying down some tracks with us. John had always been a big Garcia/Grisman fan. We had already picked "Song for John" as one of the tunes for the album, and knowing for sure that John had turned me on to Grisman's music so many years earlier, I thought it was only appropriate to have Grisman play on that specific track. Having the opportunity to work with Grisman was truly an honor, and being that the song is a more Americana/Folk type thing, he added to it in an incredibly natural and authentic way. I'm totally happy with the way the track came out, It's one of my favorite songs on the album and I can't think of a better way to honor my boys memory.