So yeah it's been 7 years since I put out an album. What the hell? How did it go so fast?

Busy:

Not that nothing got done. Between studio recording, half finished tracks an iphone 'idea' recordings I have well over 200 song ideas. Sometimes I have to remind myself of this since it's easy to blame 'writers block' or something like that when I get down about not being done. A lot of the songs that will be on Vol 1 were nearly finished in 2011-2012. Right after 'February Sessions'. 'Find it Out', 'Fallen', 'See the Light'---all pretty much finished then. So why did I wait? Ahhh  Life

Editing:

This is always the part that's the hardest. I always fall in love with every idea. Every song. Every riff. They're all so fucking cool when I first come up with them. Sadly, not all of them are good enough. Not a bad thing, just how it is. I get so excited when some new part comes to the surface. A new lyric. A new piano part. A new chord progression. And it's easy to spend time trying to flesh out that idea. However it takes time away from the songs that really are better. Or fit better. So lately my focus has been on self editing to get the final running order in place and finish those songs.

Themes:

Sometimes thinking about what I just wrote, a song won't make the final album for a lot of reasons but one of the biggest is that it doesn't fit the theme of the overall album. Or there's another song that's similar in feel or music that fits better. I've done this before. "How the Story Ends" ended up on 'February Sessions" but was written when I was doing 'Reach'. On this one 'Winter Song' is actually from the 'Ria' sessions. And oddly enough since I think I haven't done anything, the version you'll hear is the version that was laid down then. Seven years ago ha. Only a few tweaks to the lyrics.

So here I am at the end of September. I have a goal of having everything finished on my end by the end of October.

Stay tuned!

peace

Mike