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I asked Andrew Ellis, a music journalist and friend of mine from the UK, to write a new biography for me. He graciously agreed and we set up a phone interview. A few weeks after the interview he sent me not the standard artist biography, but my own words extracted from the interview and blogs about the Curvature recording process, chopped up and arranged in short story form. So it is with some irony that I present this first person bio, written accidentally, edited by Andrew Ellis.

* * *

I spent two months living in an isolated cabin on the edge of a lake with my friend and producer Blumpy. The scenery was beautiful; the weather was cold. It was the dead of winter. I went there to get inspired and to record these songs you’re listening to right now.

The idea was simple: not worry so much about writing songs that fit into a specific mold, just make music I really love. I first worked with Blumpy (an accomplished LA producer/ engineer/programmer with credits ranging from VAST to Filter to Depeche Mode) with my former band July For Kings, on our MCA album, Swim. We recently reconnected and he said to me, “Let’s do an album”. So we started talking about it and our scheming became a reality.

I immediately locked myself away and did demos of about thirty songs. Some days I was writing several songs. Meanwhile Blumpy sacrificed a couple of months of work in LA and shipped his studio halfway across the country to a lakehouse just outside Traverse City near the great lake of Michigan. Trees crashed down around us in the occasional storm, it was freezing cold and the power would go out. But the whole idea was to completely get away and immerse ourselves in this project, and apart from trips into town to buy food and kerosene, there were no distractions.


"it's so cold!" - Photo by Antonio Ciaravino



The only concept we had was to be creative. Rather than get caught up in what people are going to like or dislike, we didn't over-think anything. We threw out some rules and started. We used what might be considered the wrong mic’s, and recorded things contrary to convention. We did use traditional rock guitars but we also experimented with keyboards, piano,
sequencers, loops, and unusual sounds. One integral part of the record is the cello, performed by my band-mate cellist/guitarist T Miller.

Despite all the fun we had with production, we were careful to keep the album about the songs. First and foremost I am a songwriter so we kept the focus on the progressions, lyrics and melodies. Instead of the traditional studio order of drums and bass first, we started with only the guitar or piano and vocal and let the mood of the song dictate how we built up the rest of the track.

When we were finished in Michigan we spent a couple weeks in Ohio recording cello (T Miller) and drums (Dan McQuinn), then went our separate ways for a few last minute overdubs and mixing. I am unbelievably excited about this record. It’s been one of the most liberating experiences of my life. You can call these songs ethereal, experimental, or whatever you want, but they define me as a writer and an artist.

PRE-ORDER OUR NEW ALBUM "Curvature" today!

1 Wake Up LISTEN
2 White Bird LISTEN
3 Glass Case LISTEN
4 Mitral Valve Prolapse LISTEN
5 Virgo LISTEN
6 Envoi d'un Message LISTEN
7 All the Way Across LISTEN
8 Telescope Eyes LISTEN
9 Perseus LISTEN
10 The Dark LISTEN
11 Futureflies LISTEN
12 Pray the Stars LISTEN