Welcome to the machine. But I enjoy being able to look at myself in the mirror without throwing up in my mouth. Anything about this music that sounds timely is little more than a bizarre coincidence. Some will try to justify their crazed bandwagon-humping by claiming artists have a responsibility to hold a mirror up to the times in which they live. Maybe it has something to do with only having so much time to get all of this stuff out. Maybe the end of a decade has the effect of throwing the impermanence of my existence into sharper focus.
Making an album β however long or short it is β is usually pretty straightforward for me, even if I go about it in a backwards way. I write some songs. I record the ones that resonate with me the most. Then I move on to the next one and the process repeats.
My goal has always been to document the entirety of my artistic life with as much honesty and clarity as I can. As I hopefully continue to evolve as a human being, the music does the same. Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of my life.
I want to do justice to the totality of the experience. I was hanging out with Tyson one night in It was about a year after our band dissolved. He asked if he could hear some of what I was working on. It was difficult to hear room for anyone else in the music I was making. Still, it startled me when he said that. I guess I became a lone wolf right around the time I was able to start growing something that looked like it might one day develop into a respectable beard.
I got tired of trying to find other people my age who were serious about making music and willing to turn empty talk into action. Even after I gained enough visibility and clout to convince other local artists there might be some value in working with me, it was almost always a one-sided proposition. I was never much more than a put-upon sidekick. That got old pretty fast. As my music matured, I put more time and thought into crafting songs and albums and devoted more care to the production side of things.
