The singer/songwriter composes in his mind constantly while doing the day job, and he’s been known to record a video or two playing those tunes and sharing them on his “music” Facebook page.
The inspiration comes from just about anything. Sunny days and gloomy ones, too, and history, architecture, cracked sidewalks, and, at times, how another person’s story relates to the one he’s been writing since he first picked up a guitar at age 8.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not garbage,” insisted local performer Adrian Niles. “Because most of it is, but that’s just part of the writing process.”
Fellow musicians ask Niles about his process from time to time but he never answers. Never. It’s not because it doesn’t want to. He would if he could.
“I really don’t know how to answer that question because there are times when I try to write a song and yeah, it’s just not that good. Then there are other times, though, when what I write comes out pretty cool,” Niles said. “OK, so this past Sunday I was sitting there just flipping through Facebook and I saw this picture of this meteor crater that a lot of people think it was formed 50,000 years ago out in Arizona. Something clicked in my head. I knew I needed to know more about it, but I didn’t know why.
“I thought there was something there for me, so I did a little more research and I found out about the dude that bought the property where the crater is,” he said. “It turned out that the guy had millions of dollars but he spent it all trying to find something worth something in that crater and he ended up spending his entire fortune on it back in the early 1900s. He was searching for the meteorite and he spent all of his money.”
OK, so?
“I ended up writing a song.”
But why?
“Well, when I thought about it … that he lost everything trying to find something … I thought, aren’t we all just doing that during our lifetimes? It’s about finding the right way to live your life and have a good time doing it, right? So, that’s why I wrote a song about that man and his search for something.
“A lot of people told him it was a dead volcano, but he knew there was more than that,” Niles said. “He ended up losing all of his money trying to find out.”
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The miner’s name was Daniel Moreau Barringer, and “Meteor Crater” now is the most protected meteor impact zone in the world.
Barringer, according to the article published five years ago, spent 27 years searching for the actual meteorite but passed away before his theory was proven. His decedents, however, have realized the crater’s true worth.
The entrance to the “Meteor Crater’s” visitor’s center is a mere 36 miles east of Phoenix, Ariz., and a trip to the oddly smooth crater bottom will take a person 600 feet below the surface. The site is open 12 months per year and at this time of year it is open from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Admission is $18 for adults, $9 for those 6 to 17 years old, and free for children younger than 5.
“He believed there was something but never found out for himself,” Niles concluded. “That seems to happen a lot.”
Here are the lyrics Niles’ ode to Mr. Barringer:
Fireball
I got a trailer near a crater one mile wide
I rode a wild wooly mammoth here but he died
I hung his skull on my wall and I sold his hide
to the spirit of the fireball that fell from the sky
The moon is made of paper and the sun is a dream
That’s what the dust tells me when it hits the bloodstream
A prospector by trade, but a sculptor at heart
The fireball fell a long way from a distant ark that sailed the cosmic sea, it tore him apart,
and scattered his many oddities into the deep dark
The stars are neurons and the mind is a galaxy
That’s what the dust tells me when it hits the bloodstream
I’ve a map in a box where I keep a few tools
A shovel, a telescope and my rocket fuel
I’m searching the desert land hot dry and cruel
for the fireball out here somewhere underground keeping cool
The mountains are a spaceship powered by steam
That’s what the dust tells me when it hits the bloodstream
One Tale and Then Another
That was Sunday when Niles wrote “Fireball,” and, well, that was days ago now. Niles has written a few more since and , truth be told, an audience may never hear Niles perform “Fireball” during one of his shows.
“That’s just the way it goes when it comes to me and music. I write it, put it to music and may even record it and put it out there, but who knows from there,” he explained. “It’s all part of the process. You just don’t really write a song, but that’s not something I can’t explain to anyone.”
BUT!
But if he is asked the question, “How do you go about writing a song?,” his best answer goes a little something like this:
“What I would tell someone is that they have to write a bunch and it will all be terrible,” Niles said. “That’s what I did for many, many years, and sometimes I think I’m still in that stage because I do have periods of time when everything is garbage. But then something comes and you just know.
“You have to open up yourself to the possibility of a song. That’s all you can do. I don’t think you can just sit down to write a song. That’s not how it happens, at least not for me,” he said. “If you do, I would think it’s going to sound like some pop-music garbage and we have enough of that in the world. Instead, you just have to let it go and let it come.”
