slow moves

This is not my song.
It's a demo from my lifelong friend and band mate Trey Batts.
Engineered & Produced by fellow band mate Bill Grishaw. Looking forward to playing this one live. RVA......

kray kray 2

A song reflecting on failed relationships and choosing to get back up...

I wrote this song to reflect on my own experience with love. In the fall of 2020, in my mid-thirties, I am engaged to get married to my (hopefully) second and final wife. My parents have been divorced from each other since I was eight years old, and both are currently on their third marriage. 

This song is very personal for me as I reflect on love as I have experienced and witnessed it, and the stigma surrounding the idea of getting married again. Why can’t we look at people searching for love again in a positive light like so many other ‘underdogs’ in the American narrative?

My Oldest Friend

A song about struggling with mental illness...

Saying that the year 2020 has been hard on everyone would be an understatement. I'm not here to try and claim one person's struggles are more important or have more weight than any other person. I can only comment on my own experiences.

As someone who has battled mental illness for as long as I can remember, the challenges of the year 2020 weigh me down, even on my better days. I am fortunate to have found the right balance of therapy and medications about 10 years ago, but that itself was nearly a 10-year journey. I am also blessed to have family and friends who support and love unconditionally. The idea of conditional love is so foreign to me, and as I get older, I see more and more how rare I find unconditional love outside of my own experience.

I started writing this track while in a deep hole - being the primary caretaker of my dying grandfather in his last days; also having recently learned that the company I worked for was filing for bankruptcy and I no longer had a job. 

I would consider these last several months as some of the darkest I've experienced in a very long time, but even at their worst, I am blessed to have found what works best for me through the love, therapy, and medicine. But other's are not as lucky as I am. Some suffer symptoms more severely or differently than I do. Some have "loved" ones who don't love unconditionally. Some don't have the means to afford or access the needed care.  The list goes on.

I hope you enjoy this track or even that it makes you feel something. The message I'm trying to convey is that no-one is self-made and it's OK to ask for help. I wanted to dive into a genre I had never worked with before. 

And thank you to my constant support of friends and family. The idea of conditional love is so foreign to me, and as I get older, I see more and more how rare I find unconditional love outside of my own experience.

Love each other. I love you all.

Where The Light Is

A love song for my betrothed...

I wanted to write a love song for my future-second-and-final wife, Jessica Nicole Steiner. I initially intended to work on it in secret and give it to her on December 16, 2020 which will be our wedding anniversary beginning next year, but I suck at lying and hiding things. I already used all of my discretion when planning our engagement last year in front of most of our family and friends at one of my shows. I couldn't hold back this time around, and I had to share it with her as soon as I got the rough draft down. 

One of our favorite bands that we listen to together is Mumford & Sons - I proposed last year after performing their song "Forever" - so I wanted to write a song that captured that style. I wanted to keep the instrumentation raw and acoustic, not just for the style, but also as part of the message: this is who we are, - with no filter; no mask - and that is all we need. There is some spiritual imagery here as well, so I wanted to capture some of that with the organ and a choir of voices. The lyrics are not only the truth of our journey so far, but sprinkled with lots of references to our lives and experiences together (ie. Our cats our named Dylan and Cash, and its not by accident that i reference two famous song titles by each respective artist).

Journey before destination; the most important step we can take is always the next one.

Lost

Right to left
A forward step
I tell myself keep walking
Just because it hasn't been done
Doesn't mean it's off the table

It's a tricky thing
Staying in the swing
We should let go
Backward logic
It's a pleasure to have made it through
A brief exchange, one to another

When we cross over
Time moves much slower
We organize and calculate
In service of rewinding fate

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Bass @dessimoz
Electric Guitar - Jarrod Brown
Mixing and Mastering @schmidt

Some art elements by freepix

Directions

When I look away from you
What I don't see is still true
It's like running water
It's always going somewhere

With hands in my pockets
I'm kicking dirt
Thoughts make me anxious about it
It's always going somewhere

In the open air
We're on our way, we're getting there
Cuz you've gotta believe me
It's always going somewhere

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Mixing and Mastering @schmidt

Some art elements by freepix

Going Somewhere

If I'm in the dark am I casting a shadow on you?
I feel something behind me
If it's light is that a good thing?

Welcome to the design
Don't start to panic
Time to begin to redefine
This is where we're landing

Watch the cycle pass
And be careful how you prepare
The warnings are among us
Hidden in plain clothes, normal surroundings

Welcome to the design
Don't start to panic
Time to begin to redefine
This is where we're landing

Come one, come all
To get swallowed down the hole
What we call our world, this mirage
The work of the maker
Come one, come all
To get created
Contours and crevices
What we call ourselves
Virtues and vices
Masterpiece of the architect

Come one, come all
To get swallowed down the hole

Come one, come all
To get created
The work of the maker

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Bass + Drum Echoes ("western dub") by @dessimoz
Mixing and Mastering by @schmidt

Some art elements by Freepix

Welcome To The Design

A love song about overcoming challenges together...

I set out to write a sequel to the track "Lost," the love song I wrote for my fiancée.  As things were coming together, it evolved into also being a sequel to "Where the Light Is," the song I wrote about my struggles with mental illness and the state of the world at large.

This is not a love song that is full of sunshine and rainbows.  Above all else, we will face the good, the bad, and the ugly TOGETHER.  We will grow together.  We will continue to aim for better.  We will BE better. The vow most important is WE will do better. The most important step is always the NEXT one. The world and our country needs to embody this message now more than ever.

This track combines the musical styles of both Lost (Roots Rock) and Where the Light Is (Electronic Rock) and evolves into something more as the track progresses.  The bridge is intentionally chaotic, just like trying to navigate this world tends to be at times, before pulling through to the final reprise.  We'll accept this pain, but not that we deserve it.  Failure is the mark of a life well lived.

Now, before you ask; yes, that is my former-and-temporary-first-wife pictured alongside my future-second-and-final-wife. We discussed at length using this photo for this track, and she fully supports it because that is who and what we are. We are the king and queen of making people feel uncomfortable because there is nothing that is off the table with what we say or do, and how we live our lives. I chose this photo because we cannot forget where we came from, even if it hurts.  The pain will fade over time (and maybe never completely), but we still need to remember in order to grow and become better.

The Vow

A song for my brother.

My musical journey truly began back in the year 2000, when I started 8th grade at a brand new school because my family had just moved. In my homeroom class, I started talking to the kid behind me because we both liked to draw DragonBall Z characters. That was the day I met my brother, Jarrod.

We became best friends, and he had started taking guitar lessons, so naturally, I wanted to play guitar too.  We didn't stick with the lessons very long, but we spent all of our time learning how to play our favorite songs in his garage, and the rest is history. We've been best friends ever since, and have played music together in a variety of projects together over the years, and I owe all of musical talent to him because I always thought he was a better singer and guitar player, and I was trying to keep up.

I wanted this track to be reminiscent of our days playing eclectic hard rock like we did in the band A Life Among Ghosts. I also wanted my brother to be there along side me for the ride, and Jarrod was gracious enough to offer his voice and guitar solo.

I love you, brother.  We turned ourselves around; that's what it's all about.

Special thanks to Rob Dessimoz and Nate Burns for their contributions as well.  Don't worry, I'm gonna write a love song for each of you too ; )