It's rarely easy naming an album, but for some reason the title for what is now known as "Paint No Devils" eluded me for months after John [Curley] and I had completed the mixes. At various times, my newest collection of songs was known as:

More Dark Than Light (a favorite song on the album, but too bleak to describe the whole album)

Autumn Bomb (interesting image and play on words, but too damning, like a self-penned review, i.e., "Shit Sandwich")

Stars Caught Leaving (too much like a tabloid headline, conjuring visions of Lindsey Lohan's bleary mugshot)

Black & White Sunshine (brought to mind the cold feel of Mapplethorpe's classic b&w of tattered Old Glory, but deemed too obtuse)

Venus Return (the medical term for the return of blood to the heart; cool metaphor, but Venus rhymes with… you guessed it... so probably a better name for an emo band)

After much racking of brains—my own and those of everyone else I know who's good with words (thanks Bill, thanks Paul)—I gave up…at least temporarily. Sometimes letting it be—as any McCartney fan knows—is the best policy, especially when it comes to creative matters (leaky plumbing… engine lights… grapefruit-sized lumps under your arm… these things you want to have checked out).

Time passed, the self-imposed pressure slowly released, and one day I realized I'd been over-thinking the whole thing. I had scanned my lyrics a dozen or so times in search of key phrases, but for some reason, nothing seemed right. With the benefit of distance, I went back to the source—the songs themselves—and I realized the perfect title had been there all along: "Paint No Devils."

The song itself was an early favorite in the studio, one that really took on a life of its own, always a good sign. After Andrew and I had tracked the rhythms, letting the ending naturally climb a bit, we took off to grab dinner for everyone and let Calvin work his magic, building up the electric guitars on the ending. At The Comet in Northside, Andrew and I ordered a couple pints of Guinness while waiting for our bag of takeaway burritos.

It was then that I realized exactly how much I trusted the people I was working with (and how much I truly love Guinness). I told Andrew that, theoretically, he and I could knock off for the rest of the evening and quaff pints at the bar, confident in the fact that we would return to the studio and absolutely love whatever Calvin, Paul and John had been inspired to record.

True enough, Andrew and I made our way back to the studio—where there was, in fact, plenty of Guinness, albeit the draft cans—and we were completely blown away by what Calvin and John had tracked. Over this great raga-esque rhythm guitar, Calvin had sculpted this haunting feedback part that sounded like a bowed saw run through an old tape echo or something. In some ways it acts as a second vocal, answering my main vocal melody. Pure controlled, accidental perfection.

The rest of the tracking on the title song was completed after Calvin, Paul and Andrew had returned to Toronto. John and I were listening back to some vocal takes one night, when Austin [Brown, no relation to Calvin], the singer-guitarist for John's band the Staggering Statistics, returned to grab some tapes he'd been working on.

Through the control-room window we watched him enter the studio's live room, then stop and pick up some headphones that were lying on the floor. Apparently he could hear the playback mix blasting through the headphones. As the song reached the outro, he moved over to a vibraphone that John had recently acquired and started played something—unmiced, it was inaudible to us. After the song ended, he entered the control room and told us he'd worked up a part for the song.

John quickly miced up the vibes, got a level on tape, and after just a few takes we had this amazing new texture in the song. Austin left that night just as suddenly as he arrived, but fortunately he returned a few weeks later to track another part he'd heard in his head--this time a couple guitar tracks.

When I arrived at the studio for that session, he and John had patched together a number of effects pedals—including an MXR Blue Box—and Austin was running through the song's outro, conjuring some numinous fuzz from his Les Paul.

By the time he moved on to a second track of skittering guitar, a small audience of local musicians had randomly assembled, including the guys from Sohio, who had stopped in to grab a mix of a song from John, and Jason from Chocolate Horse, who had stopped by to drop off the vintage Moog.

Heads nodded. jaws dropped and beers hoisted as Austin channeled the randomness of the universe into the song's climax. He later revealed that he'd been drinking Jameson for much of the day. Not exactly great for the liver, but perfect for what the tune called for.

The song itself seems to strike a chord with a lot of guys who hear it. To me, it's pretty much a blues tune—a sort of howl from a man to his woman, but maybe that's a reversal of the typical roles. The title and lyric comes from a Hungarian folk saying—don't paint the devil on the wall, or he might appear. In the song, it's a reminder that you—or at least I—shouldn't dwell on the negative. Black thoughts can become self-fulfilling prophecy—or a totally kick-ass song with a title worthy of an album.