I almost cut the track “Do It” from this album because it seemed a little too mushy and on-the-nose, but ultimately it’s the whole reason I wrote this album. Because I knew I had all this music and all these ideas in me, and it was just time to actually Do It.

It didn’t start as a concept album. The final track, Gratitude actually came first. I had just seen Peter Gabriel for the first (and super-likely LAST) time and came out thinking: “I can do that. Watch me.” (Hence the Sledgehammer-style coda to wrap up Gratitude and ultimately the entire album.) But then I started writing lyrics every night and discovering what my psyche wanted to talk about. Turns out, I had a lot of thoughts to get out. Depression, Death, Life, Love, Hope, Regret, Reincarnation, Existentialism. The album was going to be called When You’re Me, but then the song Expand came along and I couldn’t stop talking about The Egg by Andy Weir for the entire summer of 2024. And most of the Fall. And I started to see this album was more than just my little ruminations. 

I’ve come to realize that, if nothing else, I wanted to have a major work to leave behind for my now 5 year old daughter. Someday I’ll be gone, and when she wants to hear me, this album will always be there… With only a few minor moments that’ll make her go “Wait, Dad, WHAT?!” She already loves it, by the way. She wants to hear it in the car.

But there are themes in here that I hope will rock a few boats. You shouldn’t need to be locked in a burning building to consider your own mortality. You shouldn’t need to almost die on an operating table to see that there might be more to this adventure that you can explain with science. You’d be happy for a friend who won the lottery, right? Well, then be happy for the you in another dimension that didn’t just stub their toe the way you did in this one. Producing this album has been more of a religious experience than I ever got from a Synagogue. 

And yet, I’m still in here. Old friends and lovers are in here if you know where to listen for them. I like to think that this album will be recommended listening for new friends so they’ll understand what they’re getting into, and old friends to better make sense of who they’ve been dealing with in this 6’2” meat sack. And hopefully strangers will listen and hear something that resonates in a way they weren’t quite expecting. 

Keep reading on the blog!