I wanted to take the time to reflect upon the process of creating this record and the influences that affected the choices that were made throughout it.

I'd been writing songs pretty seriously since about the year 2005, when I was still in high school.  Throughout that time, I'd written in varying styles, but mostly reflecting a preference for music from an earlier era - you might've called some of those songs as being from the "AM Gold" family if it were the 1970s.  In addition, I loved rock 'n' roll, and always had since seeing Elvis on TV from the age of 4, and that would become the linchpin of the entirety of my musical development.

When it came time to figure out what kind of artist I would seek to be and the kinds of songs and arrangements I would release, it was difficult to narrow the path given my range of influences and wasn't quite sure how forgiving one's perception might be.

But my path began to narrow starting in 2015 - that was when I'd experienced the first real gut-punch of the passing of a musical hero of mine: Glenn Frey of the Eagles.  He was someone whose songwriting (along w/ Don Henley) I really studied during my formative years and was easily one of my very favorite male singers - someone whom I still try to model my own voice after.  His passing accelerated my need and desire to coalesce around a voice that was my own and would be understood by others. So with that, my songwriting focus began to shift towards the steady hand his influence always provided me.

This path was solidified the following year in 2016, when my musical world was dealt the seismic blow of the death of Tom Petty.  Tom was another artist that I always admired, but really studied his writing more as I came into my own development in my early twenties.  I absolutely loved his band.  The tight, carefully-crafted arrangements designed to showcase the song while creating space for each instrument to shine, fit in perfectly with my recording aesthetic.  His loss felt like it had the potential to be a death nail for the long, storied legacy of rock 'n' roll, and I just felt as though I had to do whatever I could to make sure that didn't happen on my watch.  Sounds a bit self-absorbed saying it out loud now, but it's how I felt in the moment and in a lot of ways, I've been riding that wave ever since.

The creative decisions you make on any project are driven by such a confluence of varied things, it would be impossible to list them all.  But if I were pointing to two catalysts which had a profound impact on how things shook out for this record, it would be the untimely deaths of those two titans of song.  Both of their influences helped form my own personal credo around songwriting and I can't help but in some way feel that this record is a paean to the role that their artistry played in my life.