Domino’s May Be Right

by James Adams

This is the fourth installment of What’s Happening Wednesday, where you find out what XY Unlimited is doing right now – or at least right now-ish.

Robots: powered by pizza. Lets just hope they don’t start eating it.

Good things happen over pizza. Domino’s argues this point well in their newest ad campaign and, though some halibut enthusiasts object, recent experience forces us to concur.

Amidst the chaos and beauty of preparing for our West Coast tour, we’ve squeezed in two pizza-fueled moments of progress:

“Happily Retired”

A fan recently commissioned us to produce a composition he wrote and sang for his wife upon her retirement. The song is not only incredibly sweet, but also pretty darn catchy – he’s hoping it will become the “Happy Birthday” of retirement celebrations.  Since last Wednesday, we’ve recorded old-timey drums, bass and guitar, and have now successfully created a track that sounds like the overworld theme from Super Mario World. This pleases us.

Dat kale. Dat vegan cheese.

After six long hours of recording, we took a break to enjoy some gluten-free, dairy-free Pitfire Pizza. I know that such a pizza seems really lame and wimpy, but consider the serious determination it takes not to order cheesy, meaty goodness. Actually, Pitfire makes it pretty easy – their gf-df pizza is atrociously good.

Ninja Assassin Christian

XY hit another milestone this week: our first record label meeting. Michael and I invited Christian along to get a third XY brain in the room, assuming he would match our uninformed scrappiness with his own. The label reps brought us up to a classy boardroom in Burbank and delivered what I thought was a rather thorough and appealing proposal. I asked a couple of carefully-considered questions intended to make me appear wise and informed, as did Michael. After receiving satisfactory answers, I assumed the meeting would soon wrap up.

Christian had other plans. Like us, he began with a couple of soft-pitch inquiries about the label in general. Then, pleasant and charming all the while, he launched into a series of specific and technical questions about the label’s business operations, experience, accounting, and a number of other topics that would have made even a music business robot‘s brain explode. I lost count of the questions, but when one of the label execs started explaining the inner workings of an obscure instrument one of his colleagues had invented and Christian actually knew what he was talking about, I realized that Christian had somehow assumed complete control of the meeting.

Needless to say, Michael and I were impressed and awed. We rewarded Christian with more Pitfire Pizza, where we gathered afterward to discuss the meeting. While waiting for our order, Christian leaned over and inscribed the house colors into a nearby chalkboard. We’re still getting to know Christian, but it seems a vigilant and loyal XY warrior has joined our ranks. The gods smile on us. Especially the pizza gods.

Is Domino’s right? Does pizza truly inspire greatness? Weigh in with your pizza experiences (or doubts) below.

When you’re finished, check out our new “Band Member Quotes” section above, updated every Wednesday and filled with the most heartfelt and embarrassing sentences that someone takes the time to record!