Bio:

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Dusty Edinger started playing drums at age 15.  By 16 he was playing local Atlanta clubs and by 18 he was recording and touring.  He attended the University of Georgia where he was a student by day and musician at night.  He received a bachelors degree in psychology and eventually moved back to his home town of Atlanta, hell bent on being anything other than a psychologist. 

 

Once back in Atlanta he began writing songs and was a founding member of the band Star Collector.  Star Collector’s debut release, “Songs for the Whole Family” was well liked by critics, and gained a lot of label interest, but eventually led nowhere.  Soon after, King Friday was formed.  After recording a five song EP and playing for the better part of 4 years, the band eventually succumbed to exhaustive lineup changes and disbanded.   

 

After the break up of King Friday, Dusty became a hired gun, playing pick up gigs wherever possible.  Then in 2011 he began playing drums for Metalsome in Atlanta.  Happy playing drums for a living, one might have thought that songwriting had finally been put to bed forever.  

 

Whoa!  Not so fast… 

 

    

On the making of Missing Links and Kitchen Sinks:

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...So in December of 2019, I picked up a guitar and didn’t put it down for 12 weeks straight.  The Covid situation helped.  I couldn’t go anywhere, so I just wrote and wrote.  Looking back, this was the most creative time in my life.  Songs poured out of me in a way that I had never really experienced before.  This record is a result of that period.    I sent some demos to Gary Stone at Dream Antenna Studios.  I had played with Gary for a stint, but didn’t know much about his skills as a producer.  And Gary certainly knew nothing about my original song writing.  Songwriting isn’t something I talk about much.  In fact, this record will come as a bit of surprise to a lot of people.  Anyway, I called Gary up to talk about studio time.  I caught him off guard.  He knew me as a drummer.  I’m sure he was wondering if the world really needed another Phil Collins.  (#itdoesnt) 

 

He really seemed to like the demos, so we decided to get together and strategize.  We quickly realized that we loved all the same stuff.  And he seemed to know exactly what I wanted for the record before I even said it.  We have been finishing each others sentences for the last 15 months.  It’s spooky. I remember we were recording “Sleeping with the Enemy” and I told him I wanted a vibe like the theme from the TV show Welcome Back Kotter by John Sebastian. He instantly knew what I meant (and so will you if you listen to both songs).  So we stood around a $6000 microphone and clapped together like we were in the Archies.  But the song turned out exactly right, which is what you want to happen when you try and do things. 

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We both have man crushes on Joe Walsh.  He turned me on to some lesser known Gerry Rafferty records that are really great.  We both love Queen, The Beatles of course.  Eagles.  If you can’t see the beauty in “I Can’t Tell You Why” then we probably can’t be friends.  Gary likes all that stuff as much as I do.  And when I would say to him...Hey how do we make the guitar sound like David Gilmour when he played on that Paul McCartney record???  He would instantly know what I meant. He speaks my secret twin language. I need someone like that in the studio.  I can’t say enough about the guy.   His fingerprints are all over this thing for sure.  And if patience is a virtue, then he is indeed the “Andre the Giant” of this particular skill set.  He entertained every dumb idea I had.  Some we kept.  Some we didn’t.  But we left no stone unturned.  Pretty sure I’m the first person to ever ask him to put Lawrence Welk into a song.  That took some persuading.  But we both have a lot of mutual respect for each other and during the last year and a half I have gained a friend for life.   

    

I wrote about 18 songs.   In the end I ended up with 13 songs on the record.  That’s still a lot of songs.   I could have easily stopped at 8 or 10.  But I just couldn’t figure out what songs didn’t deserve to be on the record, so it became this 13 song leviathan.  A record company would never let you put 13 songs on a record.  It’s also the first time I wasn’t answering to anybody else, which was both terrifying and liberating at once.  Everything good on this record I wrote.  And if there’s anything bad I wrote that too.  But I can honestly say I’ve never been more proud of anything I’ve ever done.  At this point in my life that’s all that matters.   Being in that headspace is something I’d wish on anyone. 

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Who Played on What:

    

I had a lot of help on this record.   Taylor Washington played on several songs. One of my favorite moments on the record is his solo on “You Instead of Me”.  Once he finished playing it we had the following exchange:

 

Me:  “Maaaan, you really just Walter Becker’d the shit outta that.”   

Taylor: “I don’t know what that means”. 

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Those of you who know Taylor will understand why that’s so awesome.  As far as turning Walter Becker into a verb...that’s just how I talk.   

 

Derrick Gaddis played some solos that really elevated the record in my opinion, like on “More Machine than Man” for instance.   For the really hard bass stuff,  like “Infatuation”, we called Lee Banks.  It’s safe to say that Lee has a certain command over his instrument.  I’m also pretty sure Lee has “don’t let the drummer write bass parts” spelled out in topiary hedges at his house now.  My friend Kenny Howes helped me on keys.  Patrick Dwyer has a pretty amazing moment on saxophone.  Billy Gewin’s slide solo on “Girl on a Train” is also pretty special.  Gary played guitar, bass, piano and whatever else was needed.  He’s like a musical Swiss Army knife... a great guy to have around when you’re recording whether he’s engineering or not.  I played drums and sang everything, which took some doing because there is a lot of singing on this. Someone asked me the other day why I needed so many guitar players and why didn’t I just do it myself. With the exception of demos,  I generally leave the real guitar playing to people better qualified than myself.  I’m lucky enough to be friends with some of the best guitarists on the planet(just ask them).   I did, however, manage to get a guitar credit on this record.  If you can spot it I’ll buy you a beer.   

-DE 

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