Patrick and I didn’t always agree on music. We met in April 2001. I was his supervisor at the time, and he came this close! to calling in sick his first day of work. He was young and a bit mouthy. I was old and a bit mouthy. I thought he needed a shave and a haircut. He thought I needed a Profanity to English dictionary.

But more than any of that, I was a dyed-in-the-wool metal head, and he was Mr. Strum-Strum Hippie Yodel. He had written a couple of good songs on the acoustic guitar and, if memory serves, played live at a few coffee houses. I thought cramming Slipknot into a coffee house sounded like at least as good an idea.

Our tastes converged on one band, and more to the point one album, and even more specifically than that, on one track. Those were, respectively: Deftones, Adrenaline and “Bored”. We would cite this track when our musical disputes got heated: “You may not like the new Mudvayne, and while I have to admit it’s no “Bored” etc etc…”

Lately the band has fallen on trying times and musically they are several years past their peak. But White Pony stands among the greatest hard rock albums ever released, and Adrenaline diffused a childish spat or two. Or three. And I still absolutely love that track, almost fourteen years later.