Aaron David Gleason tells us about the song: "Mastermind" Came about in a pretty circuitous way. It WAS a ballad called "The Last Bus" -- but it did have the lyrics "Where did you get the nerve to see right through me?" My Producer, Robert Davis said "Oh, we should keep that line." But we threw out everything else.

We did keep the chord changes, but we added a beat. I had, at that time, made a pact to make more uptempo or at least midtempo numbers. We stomped on the floor of my apartment--messed up my floor--and made that beat. Then, we hired a drummer, David Piribauer, and he threw down that "Let's Dance" type feel. 3 months of tinkering later, we had a jam.

Jeremiah Kipp tells us about the video: The drum probably informed the whole thing for me. There was a mood of stealth and aggression and planning that wove its way through the song, of pushing forward despite outer and inner frustration. We set out to make a conceptual video around that emotional outburst, told through various characters engaged in artistic or fantastic pursuits.

Aaron didn't want to have a central role in the video, though we enjoy collaborating and he did want to be included. We centered the video on a writer drinking and scribbling (played by Bill Weeden), and gave extended sequences to a scientist stuck on an equation (Chris Sarandon), an action painter (Alice Ripley), a sea creature (Ilaria Malvezzi), a woman ripping her way out of a plastic bag filled with wires (Chelsea Smith) and a character played by Aaron's charismatic and engaging mother, Joanna, speaking to the camera in direct confrontation. Aaron interacts with some of these characters and is in some ways fighting to get through these sequences intact. Who is, in fact, the mastermind?