Our soul
My two best friends and I have worked very, very hard on our most recent album, writing it for over a year and recording it for the past 6 months. On June 24th, it will all come to fruition. Very few times in my life have I been this nervous, anxious and elated about something all at once. It’s like going off to college all over again, but with an heir of self confidence that in any other situation would be laughably presumptuous. But I know how hard Chad, Chelsey and I have worked. We have an album that lyrically, sonically, musically is so intensely personal and telling; it is the culmination of our adolescence, a narrative blanketing roughly seven years of love and labor, relationships both tragic and perfect, euphoric and disappointing, some far too short and some much too long and ultimately, the lives that have emerged.
The wonderful dudes at Topshelf Records, including my very dear, old friend Kevin Duquette, are releasing the album. They have worked so hard for us and have given back the same kind of passion for the album that we three have put into it. I could never begin to thank Kevin and Seth Decoteau enough. They are guys that I have supported as musicians and as label heads and I am honored to be working with them on a project that I love so deeply. I know Chad and Chelsey feel exactly the same. Being a band is never more difficult as when you feel like the world just doesn’t have time to hear music and thus, eventually, support it as if it were their own. It is the complete opposite when you have talented, caring people not only pulling for you but helping in ways that would never occur without them. It makes every song, every show every recording take and every idea more fun and more dire. That is what Kevin and Seth give us. Like I said, we could never thank them enough, but we will certainly try.
We have also been lucky enough to work with some very close friends on this record. Alex Mazzaferro, or Aeroplane, 1929, a Topshelf Band as well, and one of my closest friends contributed both musically and emotionally to the album. He is a brilliant musical talent as well as the type of friend one could only wish to have. Tom and Derek of The World is a Beautiful Place and I am no Longer Afraid to Die also leant their talents to the record, pushing it far past what we expected and transforming songs into something we ourselves would never have created. Again, there are not enough thank you’s in the world.
Please, check out the Topshelf Records website and look into the pre-sale that they have going on, not only for our album, but for the fantastic Mitch Dubey compilation/Tribute LP as well as the new offering from a brilliant Boston band, The Clippers. We promise anyone that pre-orders our album will receive some very special, very fun extras. Thank you all so much, and I hope as many of you as possible enjoy “American Buffalo” by us, Lion Cub.
