First of all a shout out to Ricky and Greg, you guys are infused in almost every aspect of this song.

Proctor Valley Days started as an attempt to capture what growing up Gen X in San Diego actually felt like, not simply what the 1980s looked like in retrospect.

There was a particular kind of independence to it. Parents could leave town and teenagers could find themselves with an empty house. There was no internet and no phone quietly reporting where you were. We spent far more time outside than sitting in front of a television. Skateboards, motorcycles, cars, friends, beaches, canyons and whatever happened next provided most of the entertainment.

A lot of the places in the song come directly from that part of my life.

Proctor Valley was somewhere we rode motorcycles, occasionally with the added excitement of police showing up and us deciding it would be a good time to disappear. The end of Palm Avenue was another weekend destination, an off-road playground where we could unexpectedly find some of the best Supercross riders doing things on motorcycles that seemed almost impossible. They would charge unbelievably steep hills and launch off the top. I also had a Baja Bug, built partly through shop class, that turned San Diego’s canyons into shortcuts and occasionally became airborne itself.

The world extended well beyond those two places. There were trips to Glamis, motocross trips to Ensenada where I remember the locals being remarkably welcoming, beach bonfires in Coronado, and nights when Navy guys would wander over and hassle the girls we were with. We cruised the beaches, went to Tijuana with fake IDs, and took road trips where we could somehow end up hanging around people we had never met before and everybody was just cool.

Mount Soledad represents another side of those years. We would drive up there and look out across San Diego from the top. After all the noise, speed and stupidity, there was something incredible about being able to see so far.

There was also a social freedom that feels different looking back. Our circles were not always neatly divided by age. Through things like college classes and ROP programs, teenagers could wind up with friends who were already adults. People drifted in and out of groups. You met strangers on trips. Plans changed. There was considerably less coordination and considerably more figuring it out as you went.

The song began with a broader collection of Gen X memories, including empty houses, parties when parents were away, peg pants, big hair, toilet-papering houses, beach cruising and fake IDs. As it developed, the generic 1980s nostalgia became less interesting than the specific geography and experiences I actually remembered.

That is when Palm Avenue Days became Proctor Valley Days.

The title change opened the song up. Palm Avenue could remain one important piece of the memory without having to carry the entire story. Proctor Valley became a better name for the larger world the song was trying to capture: dusty, unsupervised, occasionally questionable, and incredibly free.

There is nostalgia here, but I did not want to turn it into a sentimental story about how everything used to be better. We did some dumb things. We took risks. We had freedoms that came with costs we probably did not understand yet.

But we also explored.

We built things. We went places. We met people. We got dirty. We solved our own problems. We learned how to hold our own.

That is what I ultimately hear in Proctor Valley Days. It is not really a song about one road or one canyon. It is about growing up when disappearing for a while was still possible, and how much of growing up happened while nobody was watching.

Creative Notes

The musical direction went through several iterations. The earliest approach was closer to melodic 1980s rock, but it repeatedly felt too calm and polished for the memories. The target progressively moved toward much more aggressive skate-punk, noisy underground punk, and finally a heavier alternative rock approach built around groove, distortion, explosive drums, and vocals that can shift abruptly from controlled singing to shouting or screaming.

A recurring production goal was to make the performance feel slightly unhinged without becoming sloppy. The guitars should be abrasive and heavy, the rhythm section tight and physical, and the vocal delivery capable of sounding amused, defiant, reckless, and nostalgic without turning sentimental.

Specific wording was repeatedly tested against memory rather than kept simply because it sounded good. Details that felt invented, overly poetic, or culturally wrong were removed or corrected. That editing process became an important constraint for the song: the language could be compressed for songwriting, but the recognizable details needed to feel like something I would actually remember saying, seeing, or doing.

Lyrics

Parents gone, off on vacation A key on a chain, pure liberation Cereal nights, streetlight haze No one to tell us to change our ways Skateboard hum on a downhill run Sunburned skin, chasing the sun

We swore we were free, no looking back Speed and sun were the only tracks

Every road was ours to blaze Off-road dust and sunlit haze Bonfires burn on Coronado sand Navy boys trying to take our stand Every wheel, every wave Rolled into Proctor Valley days

Proctor Valley, throttles wide Police lights flash, we had to hide Glamis dunes and desert nights Bonfires glowing, far from the lights Ensenada tracks where the locals clapped Tacos, laughter, powerbands snapped

Older friends, already grown Showed us fast how to hold our own

Every road was ours to blaze Off-road dust and sunlit haze Bonfires burn on Coronado sand Navy boys trying to take our stand Every wheel, every wave Rolled into Proctor Valley days

Mount Soledad, the city below Felt like forever in that afterglow Road-trip nights, strangers turned friends Didn’t care how the story ends

Every road was ours to blaze Off-road dust and sunlit haze Bonfires burn on Coronado sand Navy boys trying to take our stand Every scar a badge we’d raise For those Proctor Valley days

Empty house, summer heat That’s where we learned to stand on our feet