While his home and spiritual life thrived, Woltil found tougher sledding on the job. He was an office drone for a long time, until starting his own freelance graphic business about four years ago. "I'm probably not making enough [money] but it's going in the right direction," Woltil says.
Yes, he has regrets. "I got all tied up in this midlife thing," he reveals. "I was in a job that was a soul sucker, and I wasn't even making great pay. I'm getting past the regret part of it. I think that's a vicious cycle. I wouldn't say I dwell on it.
"Through it all, I've really identified myself as a songwriter. My mind is always drifting toward that. And so even though me and Brian are past our prime and all that, we're still trying to think of opportunities to get the music out there, even at our age."
It's fitting that The Ditch Flowers got together over a song called "My Next Life."
A couple of years ago, Barely Pink split up after a fruitful run. Woltil had opened for the band a few times, and he and Merrill had renewed their friendship. The two got together for lunch at Panera Bread in Feather Sound, "with no particular agenda," Woltil says. Merrill was working on "My Next Life," a kind of alt-country song. "I was happy with how it was coming along but it wasn't quite there," Merrill says. "It needed something: a bridge, another part."
Merrill asked Woltil to help out. He quickly came back with a middle section that slows the song down and changes the mood. Woltil also tweaked the chord changes on the chorus to give it more take-off. Just like that, "My Next Life" had been transformed into an immaculate pop song. "When we finished it, I thought, 'We have a great song,' and then it occurred to me that we can make exactly the album we feel like making," Woltil says. "We have the experience, the technology and the desire."
That led to regular Monday-night sessions at Studio B. Woltil went into heavy songwriting mode and began bringing in one gem after another.
Given the guys' schedules, The Ditch Flowers project took well over a year to complete, but never once did the process become arduous. "It also had the benefit of getting re-acquainted with Ed and our becoming real good friends," Merrill says. "Ed's just a joy to be around. With other people, especially ones you make music with, you can feel their ego."
Thus far, Carried Away has gotten positive reviews, including a rave from the influential website popmatters.com; the local music mag Reax, however, dismissed it as "banal." The Ditch Flowers have put together a band for upcoming gigs, but are still auditioning drummers.
In many ways, making the music was the easiest part. Finding an audience is far trickier. It's where reality starts colliding with the dream. While the Internet is the great information pipeline — and a handful of acts have used it to circumvent the traditional label system and bring their music directly to the people — cutting through the clutter is a tall order.
The Ditch Flowers have taken steps to license their music and get it into the realm where it can be picked up for independent films and commercials. Based on quality, the band should be getting airplay on adult contemporary radio, but without the backing of a major label, that's all but out of the question. The Ditch Flowers haven't even bothered sending out packages to the big conglomerates — that's a young man's game — but they do see an opportunity to hitch on with an indie imprint that markets adult-oriented rock along the lines of The Pernice Brothers or Peter Case.
"We're obviously not the next Fall Out Boy," Merrill says. "Those days are long gone. But even though producing your own record and selling 10,000 copies is a big number, whenever I think about it, it seems viable to me."
However Carried Away performs commercially, it was not a one-off effort. "As soon as we had this album in the can, we started thinking about the next one," Woltil says. Merrill, walking out of Studio B after a long afternoon interview, says, "I honestly believe we can do better."
