Unbelievable

This month has been such an incredible journey with the release of our album! People keep asking how it feels to finally reach this point after so long. Truth is it feels right and well-deserved. Not in a cocky sort of way, but in a way where it feels absolute to have so much love, creativity, determination, hard work, and perseverance create this body of work that is now in people's hands, and circulating the web. 

On top of all this we saw families come together to support, and old friends we hadn't seen in years come out of the word work!

The shows were insane. Before downbeat, I sneaked a peak out from behind the curtain to a few people waiting for us. It occurred to me that maybe most of the people wouldn't be able to make it. For a second I felt doubt but then realized no matter what we were going to have fun presenting a damn good show! By the time we huddled in the green room and did a little pep talk we filed out on stage. The lights were bright so you could barely make out what was out in the room. By the time I put on my guitar as approached the mic I noticed the room was PACKED. It was pre-decided, and this just solidified it, we came to party. And holy shit did we party!! That room was packed full of good vibes.

We had to release the secret weapon we had planned for the audience, The Circle. At the moment they came parading in you could see the entire crowd become alert. They stopped all at once to get there bearings on what exactly was happening. You could see heads bobbing from side to side trying to see what was going on. Almost simultaneously it seemed like the crowd at once realized that there was a drum circle parading around them as they all lost their shit! It was madness from where I was standing. The crowd undulated in this great wave of bodies dancing at a fevered pitch! It was insanity! It was a beast that couldn't be stopped! Haha! From then on there was no doubt that it was an epic night.

Gotta hand to everyone involved on the music production side that night: The Circle, Brandon Peterson, Tony Hampton, Liana Bowman, Canyon Cody, Flash, Novena, and The Virgil. Thank you for Being part of this and delivering one helluva show for everyone.

Huge thanks to all our fans, friends, and families that came that night ready to get down and celebrate. Together we all made that night something special. 

Since then we've had the pleasure of mentions and interviews on LA Talk Radio, Lurssen Mastering, Ojai Valley News, Enclave LA, Afroxander, and Keeping Up With Jones. We have a few more things in the works and hope to keeping building and acquiring more an more opportunities.

I will say that I'm learning the quirks of giving interviews. They're fun. I have realized that pauses are important cause if theres no distinct pause it can sometimes change intent. For instance, in the flow of conversation I have found that what I meant as a list of positive things turned out to make me look like a douchebag, but hopefully people won't hear it that way. I'm known as being mostly a listener, so I'm Getting used to speaking more apparently. I get so many ideas trying to get out that usually only fragments make it out.

I know I speak for the band when I say we're all very grateful for all the love and support. We intend to take this on the road, record more, and make this our sole career. We're in it for the long haul.

The Process of Making an Album

We did preproduction and researched a little bit of contact info for press. What we didn't  plan for was working out Agreements! We're aiming to make this this as legit as possible, and so once we drafted an agreement between us and the producer we set off to get it checked. I luckily was able to find friends of friends who were experienced in this. That being said, remember to budget in for lawyers! It also depends how much you want them involved. At least just consider it.

Also, been drafting an Agreement for the band itself. I always want to make sure everybody understands what is happening with money. Money if handled improperly as I'm sure we all know at one point or another can rock the boat. Taken care of properly though it can really clear a secure path. Even if it feels uncomfortable to talk about, work it out. In the long run that little discomfort will save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

That's all going well tho. I've learned a lot for sure as I scoured the web on how the industry works. The Internet is an amazing resource. Blows my mind.

Beyond that we've begun research more contacts and data on press outlets. We plan on releasing the album in the spring of 2014, so we want to hit up press 3-4 months before to have it all build up to that release party. We are also researching contact now to contact venues in January to book on an East Coast Tour in October! Plan ahead!

People have this idea that being in a band is just fun. You see a band just jumping around on stage, but you don't realize the amount of work done before they hit the stage. As its been for me, working on booking, scheduling, rehearsals, composing parts, arranging songs, filling out forms, networking events, research, data upkeep, distributing compensation, writing contracts, making ads, promoting, making preproduction, creating and up keeping the website, among other things, hitting the stage and performing is just 3% of the job...and I may be generous in that estimate. You gotta love what you do!

We're making an album

There's a video of the morning I found out we nailed our Kickstarter. Happy, and overwhelmed I could care less that I hadn't shaved, eyes puffy with sleep, and that my hair looked like some rabid road kill. It had been minutes since several texts from good friends woke me up congratulating me, "congratulation you made it!". Since I was still basically asleep I could sense the urgency and excitement but thought to myself "what is haaaappening!!"

I'm still delirious from that news (by the way, that video will surface at some point). Since then we've been getting all parts into play to put this into action. I thought I had all the preproduction done, but apparently I didn't. We decided to retrack everything we had stated with about 4 years ago! This means we're reallocating funds to make it work and also researching studios. Also, what I didn't think would take as much time as it has has been working out contracts. Two of them to be exact: The contract between the band, and the contract with the producer.

You can bet I've spent hours upon hours researching percentages, rights, and typical deals. It's actually been very interesting, but I still cannot wait to get this done (and done well) and moving on to the actual recording process.

Step by step. Things are in motion so that is awesome!