In the Bungalow with Thieves and Liars

Thieves and Liars

Again, I find myself at San Diego’s landmark watering hole, The Casbah.

This evening, I strike up a conversation with the fine lads from Thieves and Liars. Corey does most of the speaking for the band but Joey and Kyle steal a moment too as cars cruise past us down Laurel Street and planes make their descent overhead.

Again, I find myself at San Diego’s landmark watering hole, The Casbah. This evening, I strike up a conversation with the fine lads from Thieves and Liars. Corey does most of the speaking for the band but Joey and Kyle steal a moment too as cars cruise past us down Laurel Street and planes make their descent overhead.

Bill: Chris Hobson produced your album at Sounden Studios. How was that experience?

Corey: It was awesome, it was really cool to work with him and bring in a whole bunch of different aspects of the music. We brought in a boys choir, and strings, and some organ to make this three piece as big as possible on the record. I would tell him what we wanted and show him a record and different examples of it, and no matter what, he could find a way to do it.

Bill: When Dreams Become Reality is a concept album about the biblical prophet, Joseph, I vaguely remember something about him interpreting the dreams of a cup bearer and a baker. For those of our readers who are not familiar with the story, could you summarize it for me?

Corey: Everyone knows how Moses led the people out of Egypt, but most people don’t know why they were there in the first place. There were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were the patriarchs of the Jewish race, and Jacob had twelve sons. One of those sons was Joseph. His brothers didn’t like him because he was his dad’s favorite. So, basically they were going to kill him, and then decided not to. Instead, they sold him into slavery.

He gets sold as a slave in Egypt to this guy Potiphar, who was one of Pharaoh’s guards and he works for him for years. Potiphar’s wife has the hots for him, she tries to seduce him, Joseph turns her down, and she gets pissed because she gets turned down, and then she accuses him of trying to rape her. So, they throw Joseph in jail, and he stays in jail for six or seven years. The guy’s luck goes from bad to worse. And while he is in jail, he meets the Pharaoh’s cup bearer and baker, they both have pissed off Pharaoh by doing something to offend him. While they are in jail, they both have these crazy dreams. Joseph interprets their dreams and says “God gives me the interpretation of dreams, let me see if I can figure it out, or God can figure it out through me.”

Joseph says that one of the men is going to be set free and one is going to die, and that actually happens. The baker had a dream that birds were eating fruit off a basket and Joseph says to him, “Tomorrow you will die, and the birds will eat your flesh.” The butler(cup bearer) goes back to Pharaoh and Joseph tells the butler “Please, remember me, I am here falsely, I didn’t do anything wrong, you gotta get me out, you are my only hope.” But, when the butler goes back to Pharaoh, he forgets about Joseph. That’s one of the songs from the story, that he’s been forgotten for a long time. He stays in jail for several more years.

Then, down the road, Pharaoh has a dream about seven fat cows being eaten by seven skinny cows, and he doesn’t understand the dream, so he freaks out and tells all his soothsayers to figure it out, but no one can. So, Pharaoh starts flipping out saying that he is going to start killing people. Then, his butler says, “Wait!, I remember this Jewish kid in jail that interpreted my dream, we gotta bring him out, and see if he can do it for you.”

So Joseph comes out, they clean him up and shave him, he goes before Pharaoh, The Pharaoh tells Joseph the dream, Joseph says, “This is what will happen, you are going to have seven years of harvest that’s going to be really good, but it’s followed by seven years of famine that will be so bad that it will wipe out the land.”

So Pharaoh says “What should I do?”

Joseph says, “You gotta start planning ahead and as the harvest starts coming in, you have to portion some out and put it in reserve so that when those lean years come, you are prepared for it, and you’ll have enough for the entire country.” Pharaoh is so impressed with Joseph’s wisdom and how he interpreted the dream that he makes him second in command, only Pharaoh is above him in power and rank in Egypt, which at the time was the world’s superpower.

So, basically Joseph becomes one of the most powerful men in the world overnight, from a slave in jail, to basically a Pharaoh. Eventually, he gets married and has children. Later, his brothers come down looking for food during the seven years of famine, and they don’t recognize him. Finally, the brothers make up with him. That’s the great ending to the story, they tried to kill him and sold him off as a slave but, in the end, he ends up using their bad actions to save not only all of Egypt but his whole family as well. So, if his brothers hadn’t sold him into slavery, Joseph wouldn’t have been in the position to save Egypt. You can see God’s handiwork here in the story. Joseph even told his brothers, “You meant it for harm, but God meant it for good.” Because he(God) saw down the road, that Joseph would be in the position to save so many lives.

Bill: That’s a bloody long story.

Kyle: Yeah, (laughing) and we’ve had to tell it a thousand times.

I flick the ash from my cigarette into the gutter as a plane thunders overhead. A Car pulls up behind Thieves and Liars’ van and As I Lay Dying’s Phil Sgrosso calls to Corey and Joey.

For the remainder of the article, pick up a copy of Yesterday Magazine at Lou’s Records, M-Theory or order a copy from this website.