We set out to record this record in 6 months.  It took a bit longer than that.  Much of the reason for the added time was because the record just kept growing in scale. “Missing Links" was such a creative success for me,  I was emboldened to try anything.  So there was a lot of experimenting in the studio.  Experimentation by its very nature means that sometimes you keep a happy little tree and sometimes you paint back over it.  But that’s the fun.  I brought in horn players, strings, complex percussion parts.  The songs are probably the best I’ve written, which is good.  Nobody wants all the good stuff to be in the rear view mirror.  As far as influence, you will hear the usual suspects.  All of the Peters, all of the Pauls and one of the Elvises.  I tap into my R and B thing a few times when I feel like it.  I don’t shy away from the big rock thing.  And elements from all my favorite pop records are all over the place to be sure. Christine McVie’s lawyers have already called me about “Road to Ruin”.   

     I had lot’s of help on the special bits.  Mark Dannells from Yacht Rock played banjo on “The Soldier”.   Gary Stone plays guitar and bass on various things.  Billy Gewin plays bass and multiple guitars.  John Souza plays bass.  There is some particularly good keyboard/piano playing from Mike Dimitri and Ron Abraham.  And let's not forget Derrick Gaddis.  His guitar playing, particularly his solos on “Road to Ruin” and “Stars” are some of the best I’ve ever put to tape.  When the guy buys a guitar his first question is always "how much is it without the case?"  because he never intends to put it away.  He can be watching TV or eating dinner and will be playing scales in between bites of lima beans.  I’m sure it drives his family nuts.  And they’ve had to move their beds out into the yard because of how many guitar pedals he owns.  The guy lives guitar in a way that I have never lived drums.  I’m jealous of the passion he has for his instrument.  But I sleep indoors.  These aforementioned folks have all become my studio family, not to mention my heroes.   As such, upon my death, I will be dividing all my Hot Wheels cars among them equally.   The Subaru Outback will specifically go to Billy.

    Lyrically I feel like this record is some of my strongest.  Deep stuff.  Shallow stuff.  Many times it’s both.  “Handsome Bully Level-Headed Zombies” is a line from the last song on the record.  It’s a fourteen minute magnum opus appropriately called “Three Headed Monster”.  Not for the faint of heart.  People often wanna know what my songs are about.  I write about my life..kinda.   I say “kinda” because to me lyric writing should be just ambiguous enough so that anyone can glean something from it and apply to themselves or their lives.  I feel like it allows people to connect to the song.   Think how much smaller in scope the universe’s favorite Led Zeppelin song would have been if the lyric was…”and she’s buying a stairway to heaven..Keith”.   I write about relationships.   Not just to people.  Relationships to the world around me.  My relationship to art.  And relationships I see happening among other people, sometimes which are boring so I make one of the people have lasers shooting out of their eyes and shit like that.  There's also like six songs about boats.  It’s just how I do it.  You do it however you want.