They contributed to five and four of the songs each, and together wrote two - “New Mexico Trouble” and “Still Some Room in Heaven.” That’s more than either had contributed to any other Gin Blossoms album.Īll four of the songs Valenzuela contributed were co-written with Danny Wilde, the leader of the pop-rock group The Rembrandts, best known for the title track from the sitcom “Friends.” That includes Scott Johnson, who replaced Hopkins, and bassist Bill Lean. Everybody just brought songs they wanted to record.” In putting together the new disc, “everybody had their songs they wanted to record. “And in that scenario, what you do is you present a whole bag of songs, and they’s pick out the 10 songs they’d like.” “In the past there was always record companies involved, and there would be an A&R person from the record company,” Valenzuela says. We just make records ‘cause we seem to enjoy making music.”īut without a record company, there was “no real pressing time constraints. He says that more than two years ago, Gin Blossoms’ members simply decided “just that it’s been a few years. Valenzuela attributes the eight-year gap before its most recent disc largely to time simply slipping away. The atmosphere then was so contentious that Gin Blossoms in 1997 took a five-year hiatus, and didn’t record another album until 2006’s “Major Lodge Victory.” It followed that with 2010’s “No Chocolate Cake.”īoth those discs had wonderful spots - the former “Learning the Hard Way” and “Long Time Gone,” the latter “Miss Disarray” and “Wave Bye Bye” - but only charted in the lower regions of the Top 200. Valenzuela, who started Gin Blossoms with Hopkins and singer Robin Wilson, says that process of recording “Mixed Reality” was “markedly different” than in the days of recording “New Miserable Experience” or its follow-up, 1996’s platinum “Congratulations … I’m Sorry,” which sold platinum and gave Gin Blossoms its only Top 10 hit, “Follow You Down.”

The gin blossoms snoqualmi casino