Panic the Animals…………what can I say about this outfit.
I wanted to be in a band with my best friends and there was a brief window when none of us were playing in any bands. So…Panic the Animals was born. Panic the Animals was Me, Josh Smeltzer, Jeremy Stockslager, and Scott Carter and his magical healing foot. This band happened prior to his injury.
We spent months doing studio work and recording and re-recording everything. We changed the compositions on some songs so often that I had a real struggle trying to decide which versions to pick. This is the case for all of the old music I possess, however in this case, it was exceptionally dense and bad.
This was also the only time in my recording history before or since that I recorded over 100 channels on several of the songs. It was unnecessary to record that way but I wanted to do it. I learned a ton about phase and how tracks sit in the mix through this process.
The band morphed into Cult of the Centipede but at that point I was on the road a lot with other bands and Josh was working on his art career and he was also working on the Jimmy Neutron movie. None of this stuff got the attention it deserved. Most of my stuff is oddly precient. Who knew that in 2026 that shape shifting lizard people and techno- psychedilcism would be mainstream. We just wrote songs based on the books we were reading at the time; Holographic mind, Behold a pale horse, Carlos Casteneda and David Icke stuff….etc. We had hoped it was all nonsense. Little did I know that I would get caught up in the nonsense…..
Without further ado…
Panic the Animals
Album art and the logo were all done by Josh Smeltzer.