Trivia / The 77s

• Creator Breakdown: Drowning with Land in Sight was inspired not only by Mike Roe's divorce and rocky rebound relationship, but also by the news that guitarist David Leonhardt had cancer. It's one of the darkest albums ever released on a Christian label.
  • Roe's first solo album, Safe as Milk, was released the following year and largely continues those themes, although there is more lighter and hopeful material on it than on Drowning.
• Executive Meddling: Word Records didn't want the band to call Pray Naked by that title and removed it from the cover of the album.
  • Things were even worse with their next album, Drowning with Land in Sight.
    • Word Records demanded that the band’s cover of “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” open the record and be the lead singer. (Most fans will agree that this was for the best.)
    • They also felt that the record lacked religious content and had the band record the closing track, “For Crying Out Loud,” which is tonally very different from everything else on the album.
    • The label demanded that the innuendo-laden song “Sneakers” be removed from the album. It was later released on the general-market version of Roe’s first solo album.
    • They didn't care for the original album cover Roe suggested and replaced it.
    • Most infamously, Word backmasked the phrase “kicked my ass” in the song “Dave’s Blues” without informing the band.
    • The 2018 reissue of Drowning uncensors “Dave’s Blues,” restores “Sneakers,” and shuffles “For Crying Out Loud” to the bonus disc.
• He Also Did: Aaron Smith, the band's drummer from 1984 to 1994, had been a Motown session musician in the 1970s and had played on hits like The Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone". Immediately prior to joining The 77s, he was the drummer for new wavers Romeo Void.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The band has spent much of the 2010s putting these out for all their albums.