BEHIND THE SONG:

The music for Chernobyl came first, another chord progression written in the middle of the night when insomnia came calling. Once the verse and chorus progressions were solid, I turned attention to find suitable lyrics.

Not sure what first made me think of the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident in Ukraine back in the spring of 1986. There's an old joke from the time about how after the Chernobyl disaster you should wear lead-lined underpants else Chernobyl fallout! (rim shot please) and that pun formed the basis of the chorus.

From there, the song became a tongue-in-cheek warning for practicing safe sex, using the tale of a young lad who, after encountering a willing partner at a biker bar, requires medical attention to put out the fire down below.

Sleuth Hound rehearsed the song with electric guitar, bass and full drum kit and originally planned on recording it that way. I believe it was Steady Eddie who came up with the idea of recording a stripped down version with just acoustic guitar and snare drum. We did the recording outdoors on the front porch of The Cunningham Place house in Jefferson County one night during a recording session weekend.

The crickets you hear at the beginning and end of the song really were chirping away all around us while we recorded live sitting around two microphones – they were not added later but picked up by the mics. Magic Mike did record the harmonica afterwards, adding so much to the song.

It should be clarified that, although I was a young lad running round town looking for female companionship back in the spring of 1986, and may or may not have once met a young woman in a biker bar, it did not result in my requiring medical attention afterwards.

And that is a picture of Frunkie le Bassist from 1986. And those are his real legs and hair.

- Frunkie le Bassist