I’ve been in this weird place in life right now where things are moving at light speed forward and days are busy and full, and also where, with my music, I am working countless hours and making seemingly no progress at all.

That happens. I wonder, I really do, if it is me procrastinating subconsciously on wrapping up new albums. It really is a scary thing… once you’re done it’s like… ok: does you likey? what should I work on now?

My thing is mixing. Mixing is when you put all the instruments together at a reasonable volume AND you somehow make it exciting AND you make it sound good on ALL stereos/headphones/cars. It’s not an easy feat and amazingly talented people make a living just doing that end of things. Paying a professional is a little pricey for me though, sadly. So sadly.

I would love nothing more than to take these tracks and send them off to someone to mix and master for me if for no other reason that tragically I get really really sick of these songs by the time I release an album. It’s not that they aren’t good songs, it’s that if they are I wouldn’t know.

Hearing them literally hundreds of times takes the excitement of what’s around the corner out of it. And I think that that is music’s big shazam, surprise, like comedy. Even if you’ve heard OK Computer 673 times, there’s a pretty good chance that you forgot how the tone of that guitar just makes sense for that solo, even though it shouldn’t. Something like that. Or is Caravan before or after Into The Mystic. Etc.

So today though it’s back to the grindstone. Honestly it would be a lot easier to mix my own material if I weren’t so addicted to bass. I listen to a lot of heavy low end music, not at all the more acoustic music I’m mixing. I cannot get enough bass. But too much bass drowns out the high end and it all sounds like mud.

I’ve been guilty of this bass addiction with pretty much every album I’ve ever released. This time I think I might try the recommended balance of things. That’s ok. It’s like following a recipe instead of (my preferred) throwing whatever you have in the kitchen together “artfully”. Recipe seems boring but could be the most amazing. Regardless it probably won’t be a disappointment. Intuitive kitchen-ing? Yeah. That can fail miserably.

I do not subscribe to this belief for songwriting though. No no no. The kitchen of songwriting (for me, don’t mind/care what others do) is not a place for cookbooks. Never ever. Maybe that’s why I’m so well known!

Yeah, I mean, the formula for big pop songs really works. But I just can’t help but feel that it is… not my thing to follow a song formula. And that’s a specific take on the process. The whole songwriter genre is a relatively new thing, but I do believe in it. That one person’s take on creating something is worth the tunneling required to follow/get there.

Well. There you have it.

So here’s the plan:

Finish mixing

Give you some pieces of the album along the way the next few months

Tour and see you and play

Repeat

Bye!