“The joy is in making the thing, so let’s just make the thing.” Necessity gave way to opportunity during the recent pandemic and lockdowns. As The Dexter Holmes Story project had to be put on hold, contributing artists Chris Boyne and Scarfo suddenly had a void to fill. The crowding of multiple musicians in a jam hall had to stop, but the writing did not. For these two, the idea of not continuing to create was unthinkable. With the pause in the original project, Boyne and Scarfo took to creating for the sake of creating. After a number of months and more than a dozen songs in the bank, the idea of putting a separate album together started to arise.
With more than two dozen songs that ranged widely in genre, “Fighting Whiskey” decided on a collection of songs that fell mostly under the rock sphere and “Dandelions and Failure” was born. Ranging within the genre from rock to punk to western and everywhere in between, this album is tied together with equal parts fun and artistic pedantry. With the addition of Chris “Puff” Puffer, the songs that did not fit onto “Dandelions and Failure” were put together as a companion album, “Songs About Crying”. More mellow, piano and acoustic based, these songs are a departure from Dandelions, but still have the trademark Fighting Whiskey sound.
