I am the World Trade Center's Dan Geller and Amy Dykes have a life together that plays out like a classic love story:
Boy meets girl. Boy and girl form band. Boy starts indie music label. Girl gets master's degree in costume design (the boy's is in environmental engineering. Band tours. Label gets taken over by evil conspirators. Boy and girl break up, write new album and go back out on tour.
OK, so it sounds nothing like a regular romance. It sounds even less so once you toss in Geller's book deal (about his research into biodiesel), the huge label lawsuit and the unfair criticism the band got for keeping its name (which, by the way, it had for a while before Sept. 11, 2001). But in the midst of the lawsuit, the touring and the name controversy, they were still just two people who were ending a long-term relationship. It sounds like terrible circumstances under which to write an album. But Geller says it was good for them, even when he had to read Dykes' sometimes-painful lyrics.
"We wrote most of it (The Cover Up) while on tour with Mates of State. I think it was a really cathartic process, and it really helped us to understand how the other person was feeling through the whole thing," Geller said.
"We're pretty bluntly honest in those lyrics, and it's kind of funny singing them to each other now."
The Cover Up, the band's third release, is a much darker album than the band's previous two efforts. Though it's still cosmopolitan dance music, there's a tone of sadness under the effervescent keyboards. The record's title reflects the pair's reluctance to talk about its breakup in interviews as well as its growing discomfort with Bush's policy of nondisclosure.
"It has a lot of meanings actually. It has to do with everything from George Bush, to the Kindercore debacle, to our relationship. There are a lot of things on that record that are very hidden that cover a ton of different stuff," Geller said.
"On the surface, it's a breakup record, and really, the Kindercore thing was a breakup, too, when you come down to it. So that's reflected (on the record) as well."
What Geller's referring to is currently the weirdest story of record-label greed this side of the Recording Industry Association of America. It goes like this: In 1996, Geller and his friend Ryan Lewis started the Kindercore record label. In 2000, Spin Magazine called Kindercore the "indie label to watch." They signed a deal with The Telegraph Company to have them handle the business side of things while Geller and Lewis focused on signing bands and touring. Six months after the deal was signed, the two found out the label was no longer theirs. Their new partners had taken over without their permission.
As with the breakup of his relationship with Dykes, Geller remains positive about the future without Kindercore.
"Yeah, it sucks. It sucks and it's not what I expected to happen. But life goes on," he said. Geller also finds just being a musician, and not a label owner, a lot easier.
"It's actually really nice because I only have to do half the work now. Now I only have to do what the band does; I don't also have to do what the label manager and what everybody else does. It's kind of cool, actually, to sit back and have other people take care of you, and then to actually be able to call a label and just ask for something," he said.
Though that might not be the ending to the label that Geller wanted, the story of his breakup with Dykes ends better.
"It's on the mends right now. It was really weird. Throughout the process of writing the album, we were on the outs. Right down to the last minute, we were pretty unsure of what was going to happen to us in the future. And now we're working on getting it back together," Geller said.
"The album helped us to get over (our breakup) by writing songs about it. And it'll help us to never do it again."