About the New Album

The new album, Graffin says, marks a return to some of BR's classic themes and is allegorical rather than direct. Which is why there is no direct reference to Iraq in the new music. "I think everyone is really tired of hearing about how everyone is opposed to the war," Graffin explains. "It's just not interesting."

This singing scholar becomes animated when describing a new track and one can easily imagine the same passion in the classroom as he elucidates on Darwin. "One of the [new] songs is called Fields of Mars. It talks about the metaphysical planes looking down on the fields of Mars, the planes of a higher consciousness because Mars was the God of War. We surmise in the song that it might be possible for humans to reach a plane above which we now exist, a plane where there is no war. That's what I mean by more allegorical, it's not saying the empire strikes first as our last album did, it's saying maybe we'll meet high above the fields of Mars."

About Greg's future Projects

"I'm interested in academic rapport with students and I believe that evolution is an important foundation [that] should be part of everyone's education," Graffin says. He has a paper coming out shortly in American Scientist based on his dissertation The Cornell Evolution Project. He also plans to write a book. "I'm non-traditional in my [academic] focus. I don't care how many publications I have," he contends. "I'd rather write one thought-provoking book that reaches a wide audience than write 100 technical papers that are read by a small community of scientists."


Click for entire article.