"Rogue" - Liner Notes - August 9, 2000

Standing in your own shadow can be a truly strange experience. Although I feel like we more than lived up to the pressure to improve upon the original Diablo, some elements were particularly sticky. The opening town theme was a good example of this.

Try as I might, it was impossible to get too far from the trusty 12-string. Though the first half of this track, which dates back to September 1998, works well, I did not feel like this tune came together until January 2000. It was then when I found the last toy (of many) which I bought in the making of this soundtrack - the hammered dulcimer. The ancient sound of this ancestor of the piano finally gave me the truly medieval effect that I had been seeking for years. The instrument itself has a pretty-but-tough texture which worked well with the image of the Rogues and their strange mixture of sadness and bloodthirstiness.

If this piece has any problems, they are probably due to my excess of fascination with texture, at the occassional expense of melody and rhythm. It was too much fun to contrast the acoustic 12-string with its electric counterpart in the first half and then to mix it up with the mandolin and the dulcimer in the newer half. As far as that slide part goes, I could not resist taking the Joe Walsh shtick to its logical extreme after all of the "Hotel California" comments I heard from Diablo players. I am a weak man...

- Matt Uelmen

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