It is difficult to talk about the birth or starting point of The Gloria Record with much of anything resembling accuracy. You might say that the last five years have been a series of births and starting points for us. Certainly the earliest one would have been in 1997, when Chris Simpson, Jeremy Gomez, Brian Hubbard, and another old school friend began writing and playing music together. A self-titled EP-The Gloria Record (Crank! 1998)-was recorded that winter and released the following autumn. It was the fruit of what, in retrospect, was really more of a recording project than a band, only showcasing three-fifths of The Gloria Record's now permanent lineup. A year and a half of artistic and creative frustration, some ill-advised, premature touring, and the comings-and-goings of what can only be referred to as a veritable stable of drummers would inevitably follow. Somewhere in the middle of that tumultuous time we were graced with the addition of Ben Houtman and his keyboard-wizardry, leaving us solely focused on the pursuit of that perpetually elusive prize which is a dedicated (and not completely insane) drummer.

Our picture began to come into focus on a Sunday afternoon late in the summer of 1999 at a South Austin pizzeria, with U2's 'Without or Without You' blaring from an exceptionally loud jukebox, and the five of us waxing (like the idiots we are) about how the peak of the song really is that moment near the end when the tambourine re-enters just before the long fade begins. It was then and there, as that song faded out, that we posed the ominous question to Brian Malone, a friend of some friends, who was down from North Carolina for the weekend: "How would you feel about moving to Texas and joining our band?" We had just finished a third straight day of "jamming" together, as it were, and felt that he was the fifth and final piece to our little rock and roll puzzle. To our surprise, his response was somewhat tentative: "That sounds really nice," he said, "but I'm going to have to go home and think about it for a few days." And what could we really do but shuffle our feet and say, "Absolutely, take your time...?" (In hindsight, the whole scenario offers a fairly accurate illustration of what is really going on at the heart of The Gloria Record-a lot of waxing about tambourines in U2 songs, foot shuffling, and time taking...) Fortunately, Brian saw past all of these things, and, shortly after returning home, packed up his rusted Oldsmobile and headed for Texas, where he has been our cheerleader, mediator, and drummer ever since.

The first public offering of the fully-staffed band would come a year later in the form of a second EP, A Lull In Traffic (Crank!/Better Looking 2000). With the advent of a solid, committed and democratic lineup, the vision behind 'A Lull...' was simply to clear the decks of all the ideas we had been working on over the year and a half we'd spent in limbo, so that we could start building the band, and our first record, together properly. After a few promotional tours for the new EP, it was back home for us-and back to the proverbial drawing board. We opted for one of those big, dry-erase ones, the kind you can get at pretty much any office supply store. We would gather around it and talk for hours on end, every day for months on end, about this idea or that. And it was there, on those days (almost two years ago now), and on that board-which is now rather tattered, and won't really hang on the wall anymore-that the debut full-length, Start Here (The Arena Rock Recording Co., 2002) was initially conceived.

It was made without the help of a label or financial backing-but with plenty of inspiration, love, and support along the way. Many dear friends got involved with the project and put in as much of their own blood, sweat and tears as we did ourselves. We traversed the highways and skyways from our homes in Austin, TX, to Presto Recording Studios in Lincoln, NE, in the winter snow, the summer heat, and the autumn breeze. It was recorded in two to three week stints, usually with us sleeping only a few hours a night, sporadically, on the studio floor, for the most part working around the clock. We grew beards at one point and looked like a bunch of lunatic sailors on a deep-sea fishing expedition, or just slightly over-dressed bums-probably a bit more of the latter. We built, tore down, and rebuilt the songs until our fingers bled, our ears rang, and our heads exploded. And the faithful dry-erase board was there to document it all. And when at last it was finished, and we had the first prototype in our hands, we rejoiced. Perhaps mostly because we never thought it would be done, never thought we would get out of the gates and actually have a proper chance to begin our career as a band. We settled on 'Start Here', as a title, partly because it was the title of the first song, and therefore obvious-which is something we are always afraid of being-and partly as an acceptance of the facts. A tipping of our hats, if you will, to the far left-end of our own proverbial timeline, which is where we currently reside, despite the fact that we have existed now, in one form or another, for nearly five years.

During our time recording, we often jokingly referred to what we were creating as our 'Boy', which brings us full-circle round to U2 and that fateful moment in the pizzeria (and us being idiots). It was, of course, a funny thing to say for other reasons too, as it sounded like we were talking about a child-which is not a completely unfitting analogy either.

The truth, though, is that life is almost entirely made up of moments where you have to make decisions, however major or minor they may seem at the time, and creative work is no exception to this principle. It is, rather, an extremely magnified example of it. And, as simply put as possible, this is the first real documentation of decisions we have made as a band.

We hope that you decide, for whatever reason, to spend some time with it.

Take care for now...

The Tgr.