Quotes on sisters moving away

Image by Hotpot.ai
Emily Is Missing Story and image by Hotpot AI
Private investigator Dirk Armstrong had seen all the greatest sleazy hits in his line of work. The cheating spouses, the embezzling employees, the fake Worker's Compensation injuries. It had all become pretty mundane. But when a call from a new client came in, it caught his attention. This case was different, like something out of a movie. This case was about a missing heiress, Emily, who had vanished without a trace.
Emily came from an old-money banking family, with a fortune that could make anyone's head spin. And now, she was gone. Her family was desperate to find her, and they turned to Armstrong for help.
As Armstrong delved into the case, he quickly realized that this was not a simple missing person's case. There were layers upon layers of lies, deceit, and hidden motives in high society. The family's desperation to find Emily seemed to be more about protecting their fortune than finding their beloved daughter.
Armstrong's investigation led him to Emily's closest friends and family members, all of whom seemed to have something to hide. But one person stood out to Armstrong: Emily's brother, Marcus. He was the one who had hired Armstrong, and he seemed to be the most anxious to find his sister. But his anguish also seemed a bit overwrought. Maybe even faked.
As Armstrong dug deeper, he discovered that Marcus had a gambling problem and was in deep debt. Could he have something to do with Emily's disappearance? Armstrong couldn't shake off the feeling that Marcus was hiding something, but he needed concrete evidence to prove it.
Then, four days after she had gone missing, there was an traceable email communication from someone who stated that they had kidnapped Emily and were holding her hostage. They made a demand for a ransom of one million dollars, and stated that they would be in contact again soon.
Not long after this, Armstrong received a call from an overseas insurance company. They were investigating a million-dollar claim for Emily's kidnapping. They explained that six months earlier, the family had taken out a specialty insurance policy on Emily for high net worth individuals. It was a highly unusual policy, paying five million dollars in any case of kidnapping, seven million dollars in cases that are resolved by paying ransom, and 10 million dollars in cases where the insured individual dies in the course of the kidnapping.
The insurance company had serious doubts about the legitimacy of the claim, and wanted to send their own investigator to interview Armstrong. They wanted to know if he had found anything suspicious in his investigation.
Armstrong couldn't legally reveal the details of his investigation to any third party, but he did tell the insurance company's investigator that something didn't add up. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there were certain things about Emily's kidnapping that didn't ring true.
The insurance company's investigator thanked Armstrong for his time and left, but his words lingered in Armstrong's mind. He couldn't shake off the feeling that there was more to this case than meets the eye.
Weeks went by with no further word from the kidnappers. Everyone feared the worst. Police detectives gently counseled the family that there was little hope any kidnapped victim is still alive this long after the abduction and involving this long a silence. Because they didn't follow up on pursuing the million-dollar ransom, the family expressed fear that the kidnappers had panicked and killed Emily in order to walk away from the whole plan with impunity.
But then, early one morning, the seemingly impossible happened—Emily appeared. She looked exhausted, malnourished, and was wearing the same clothes she was wearing when she disappeared. She told a strange story of being abducted by three men in Halloween masks and thrown into a van. She said they had kept her in some warehouse in the inner city, handcuffed to one of the warehouse's metal support poles.
She said that she was never allowed to catch as much as a glimpse of the men's real faces the entire time. They did not abuse or physically harm her, she said, but they provided only minimal care during her captivity. Then, at daybreak this day, they suddenly removed her from the warehouse, put her in the same van, and drove her near home and tossed her out of the vehicle.
This all sounded very dramatic, but because of the insurance money at stake, no aspect of her story or the situation overall could be accepted at face value. The insurance company's investigator interviewed Emily at length, but could not find flaws in her story to gain leverage with since she had been—or claimed to have been—confined and blindfolded at all times in the kidnappers' presence.
Usually, a good insurance investigator can tell whether someone's story stinks by picking apart their story and analyzing all the details. But in this case, that wasn't possible because Emily had not seen anything at all, and only heard a few things, none of which were helpful to police and the investigation.
As Armstrong continued his own investigation, he ultimately uncovered a shocking truth: Emily was not really kidnapped. It had been a fraud pulled by her family, who had been experiencing financial pressures despite being pretty rich compared to most people. They had concocted the plan, and Marcus was the mastermind behind it all. He had convinced Emily to go along with the pan to fake her kidnapping, promising her it would solve all of the family's money problems.
Armstrong confronted Marcus with the evidence, and he finally cracked. He confessed to everything, including Emily's involvement. The family's greed had blinded them, and now they were facing serious consequences. Emily herself was destined to do several years in prison for her participation, which was critical to the entire scheme.
As Armstrong handed over his findings to the authorities, he couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction. Justice had been served, and Emily was safe and sound. But the case left a lasting impact on Armstrong. He had seen the dark side of high society, where money and power could corrupt even the closest of families. And he knew that he would never look at his job the same way again.

A while back I was messing around with the Wayback Machine & came across this diamond in the rough on AP's MySpace page. Also found some photos, but most importantly, a track-by-track [Armed To The Teeth] interview from Sony Connect that they did back in '05 (presumably around the same time they did the Sony Connect set with the acoustic songs).
In the interview, Tommy tells the story behind each track on Armed To The Teeth (except Lucky). You'll also find tidbits about the process, lyrically & sonically of these songs, and much more!
If you want to read it/see it from the "raw" source and discover more, here's a link with the Wayback's capture I found on the interview blog: https://web.archive.org/web/20071005015435/http://www.myspace.com/abandonedpools
Now without further ado, the Sonic Connect Interview:
A track by track discussion of Armed to the Teeth from the Sony Connect Store interview:
LETHAL KILLERS TW: As far as how that [demo of the] song was constructed ... I did this trick where I would take a half-time drum loop and sort of nudge it one way and then put in another track and nudge it the other, and we got this sort of double time, rolling drum feel. So that - plus the sort of round-robin type of guitar parts that we have going - was sort of a very easy construction for a song. And then you start moving the bass part around, and, boom, you've got a song.
But I think that lyrically - I want to make it clear that that song isn't necessarily [about] "church is bad, government's bad." I think it's a little bit more complicated than that, though sometimes if you mix the two of religious power and government power, that can be bad for both of them. And I kinda like the idea of not living a life saying, "Well, you better live life in a certain way because then, you know, everything's gonna be great later in heaven." You know, the idea of, like, if this is all we have now, if that idea was just a little bit more embraced, our world could be a little bit better. I just find that a little bit more satisfying, too, if you think like, this is all you have and then you're gonna die. [Laughs] It seems a little bit more like, "Oh, okay, well!" instead of, like, thinking that there's some other life at some other time and you can put things off.
RABBLE TW: Well, a lot of the songs on this record - about two-thirds of it - have to do with a relationship I had that went south, and you know when you go through relationships you always have such a good 20/20 hindsight about things. And I think "Rabble" is just trying to basically say to somebody, "I just wanted to know you better" . . . It's just one of those things where, with this relationship in particular, I wish it would have turned out better. And there's a lot of things that happened that shouldn't have happened, and it's just sort of one of those "oh, what could have been?" scenarios.
THE CATALYST TW: "The Catalyst" is definitely along the same lines. I think the main line in that one is "I wish I could say something beautiful to make you fall in love again." There's a Coachella reference in there, too: "Love has slowly faded away like spotlights shining into space." Have you ever been to Coachella? Of course you have. You know, there's all those spotlights that shoot up in the air. I just thought that was kinda cool, like, how far do those lights really go? "The Catalyst" was also the last song written for the record. It was demoed while we were in the studio. And it's one of those songs that I said two-thirds of the record was written for somebody. That's one of them.
TIGHTER NOOSE TW: "Tighter Noose" is the oldest song on the record by far. It was probably written back in '99, 2000, or somewhere in there. I was thinking about it for the first record [2001's Humanistic], but it didn't really fit in with those kind of songs, so I kept it around and we'd even play it live occasionally. I think it fits in with these songs way better. [As for what "Tighter Noose" is about,] that song is one of those breaking-off-on-your-own- what-have-you-got-to-lose kind of things, because that was written sort of in the wake of when I was in The Eels. It wasn't a terribly happy situation, so I was like, well screw it, I'm just gonna go off and do my own thing. And then it's sort of like, well, you know: "I'm gonna go start my own thing. Uh, I have to learn to sing and write songs now." [Laughs] It's kinda funny: "Screw you guys! I'm gonna go get a deal!" And then like, "Uh oh." But really, I'm a firm believer in that [idea that] you just gotta go for it. And so it was like, well, this is gonna be difficult, but it's gonna be better than what I had before. And actually, with some distance on that situation, I realized I made the right decision and made a lot more money and was a lot more happy as a result. So that was sort of a leap of faith, you know. I didn't want to be someone's stupid bass player. Now I'm my own stupid bass player.
WAITING TO PANIC TW: There was a lull between record companies. The first record [Humanistic] was on Extasy - I don't know if you know about that company, but we were basically the poster-child for the implosion of an indie label. I came off the road in 2002, the label's folding, and I'm like, well, I'm just gonna go back and give this my best shot and we'll get another deal. It seemed highly unlikely, but we ended up doing it. And there was just a lull in there where nobody was interested. I had attorneys not returning my phone calls - that kinda stuff. It felt like, I'm just waiting around and I'm really anxious. So that was a song of frustration that was written and demoed all in one day - it was a song that just came out of me in like eight hours. We also put an EP out [The Reverb EP] and on the EP is the version of that demo that I did in one day. It doesn't happen [like that] very often. Usually I build bed tracks and come back to it a few weeks later and add something, and then come back a couple of days later. This one was all in one shot.
HUNTING TW: My friend Ross Golan, who has his own band Ross Golan and Molehead, had been following the wake of the relationship. He's like, "You just gotta write her a song and use her name." And I'm like, nah, nah, it's not covered enough. And he's like, "No, just do it. Go for it." So I did. I wrote this song and I wrote it for her for her birthday and I used her name, which is in the first lyric of the song, which is "Ginny." So I just went for it and wrote it. It was basically a birthday gift, and it was basically saying, like, you know, "Oops!" [Laughs] It didn't get me very far, but I like the song. We're friends, she's a good girl, absolutely, but back at that time, it was kinda like, "Erraaghhh! Here's a song!" But I like the song and I just think it was one of those times where I was really putting myself out there, and I know she liked it, too. But then, I think that's a myth where you just write a song and all of a sudden the girl just says, "Oh! Okay!" But, you know, hey. There it is. It's on the record.
That's the romantic notion of how they'll react to the song, at least.
TW: Exactly. And I'm really glad we're past that whole ironic phase, which I was part of with The Eels, where everything was super ironic and we'd play "The Macarena" on stage - [sarcastically] and that was funny! I'm glad we're through all that stuff, even though I was still a Beck fan when he was doing all that stuff, too. But I like being sincere and sappy and romantic. I kinda think that's a great thing.
ARMED TO THE TEETH TW: This is one of the first songs written when we came off the road and I had a lot of momentum. If you look at the state of the industry you can see a lot of corporations that seem to have to buy everything in sight. They just have to own everything, and to what purpose? Does it really make the industry much better? No. There's fewer outlets, there's a lot more gatekeepers. They want to buy stuff and it just kinda makes things bad for everybody. All the radio stations play the same shit - except for Indie 103.1 and KCRW in L.A. In spite of it all, I'm just gonna try to do my best and have a career anyway. When we came off the road I felt like I had a lot of momentum. Performing live is inspiring to writing, so it was just the whole idea of, "Alright, now that I have one record under my belt, I'm gonna really go for it in spite of all the forces that be." Even though they're pretty much indifferent to us, [laughs] their actions do affect us. It's sort of a song of bravado.
Why did you also choose "Armed To The Teeth" as the name of the album, too, which, in turn, implies it as the overall theme?
TW: Yeah, which is funny, since I kinda decided on that theme early on, thinking I was gonna go in a certain way, but then, like I said, two-thirds of the record is love songs. So "Armed To The Teeth" doesn't really fit in a certain way, but I also liked it just because [of] that idea of, like, now I'm really ready to make a record, and also I think it reflects the state of the country a little bit. Everything's a little bit aggressive, we're at war, and I thought it was sort of timely in that way
SOONER OR LATER TW: "Sooner Or Later" is another one of those tracks that was written after we got signed, so it's a newer song. I mentioned that sort of double time drum loop thing with "Lethal Killers" - this is the same thing. It's a half time drum loop that I nudged in one direction and then put in another track and nudge it in the other, then "boom," it's double time. And I like that, it's a good effect. It really sets up this kind of overlapping, rolling sound that a real drummer can't do. And things flam a little bit, and I really like that feel, so this song was constructed in the same manner where you have a rolling drum loop and then you put over a couple of guitar parts here and there and all of a sudden you got a song - I think this song is over six minutes. This is, um, I guess it's a couple things. Lyrically, it's sort of saying, like, whatever you do or whatever you say, there's no point in hiding anything because it all comes out in the end - which is the tagline in the chorus. There's no hiding. And in the verse it says, "Sooner or later / It's all coming down." In some way or another, whether you acknowledge it or if it just eats at your self, you can't really get away with anything. It's sort of fatalistic that way, but also in terms of, like, seeing how I also look at as a bigger picture of, like, politically, and since we're at war right now, it seems like things are getting a little scary. And that's kind of like one of those doomsday scenarios. If you look around a little you can really freak yourself out if you're reading about, like, bio-warfare and things like that. So a lot of this talk about "smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud" and all that, it sort of brought up for me a lot of doomsday scenarios. So it's two-fold: it's that doomsday scenario, in terms of as far as the world is concerned, and then, personally, if you do stupid shit then you're eventually gonna pay for it somehow.
SAILING SEAS TW: Like "Hunting," this is probably the most direct, out-there storytelling song. Instead of using her [real] name, it's switched to "Holly," which is in the chorus. So it's another one of those songs talking straight to somebody. And there's a lot of details in there that I wouldn't talk about in normal conversation. That's the funny thing about songwriting where I wouldn't talk about this, but then I can put it in this song and you can still hear it and you still understand, but it's sort of masked a little bit. It's presented in a certain way where it's somehow okay to say that when you're in a major key or something. Because like, the second verse is about pretending you're outside a room listening to somebody [you love] have sex [with someone else], and that's a situation to put yourself into to really torture yourself. I created this scenario in my head and I put it in a song, and it's kinda brutal, but the [beat of the] song is upbeat and happy.
RENEGADE TW: This is a sample-based type song [with] drum loops. The cello was originally a Bjork sample and we replaced it. This one is sort of hard to explain. To me it’s just sort of like just a creation, because some of the record is social commentary, and I think there's a lot of that in this song, and it's like little snippets and ideas, and not necessarily one unifying idea. I think it's just kind of a song based on looking around and taking stock of things. This song in particular isn't really even about anything. It's just, like, observations, pretty much. And, oh, by the way, Billy Howerdel, the guitarist from A Perfect Circle, is playing guitar on that song. He jumped on that track and he's the one that makes it sound scary.
MAYBE THEN SOMEDAY TW: That was one of the first songs written in the wake of the breakup. It was one of those kind of "well-it-just-didn't-work-out-but-maybe-one-day-we'll-see-what-happens" kind of things. Because the circumstances are such that it wasn't gonna happen immediately so I was kinda like, well, we'll see. I don't have much to say about that; it's just grouped in with "songs about her."
GOODBYE SONG TW: That was also written when there was not a lot going on for me and we hadn't really nailed down the record deal. She [Tommy's ex-girlfriend] always thought she was bad luck - she'd show up and bad things would start happening - so she thought it was her fault that I hadn't got a deal. She actually moved away and soon as she did, we got a deal. [Laughs] I think it's funny to sort of say, like the first line of the song is "I'm not washed up / And you're not bad luck for anyone," so, you know, get off the ledge, really. And it's just one of those things; it's one of those yearning songs. I think with a lot of those songs there's a certain amount of effort spent on presenting evidence, like, "Look, I know this is how you feel, but look at all the other stuff." It's almost like making a case for your self [in a song]. And like I said, it didn't get me far, but it's still a good venting process. And I sort of realize when I say things like, "I wrote this for her" or whatever, it's not really for her. It's more self-indulgent to get this stuff out. And in a way you're saying, "Yeah, I wrote this song for you," but no, you wrote it for yourself so you could say things that you felt like saying. So I realize that and I think I realized that while I was writing them, but my job is to write songs so you take from what's around you to make it happen.