On "In Leisure Car"

The writing and recording of In Leisure Car was an experiment in not turning around to look at yourself while creating art. It’s actually very hard to do. In today’s social media “ all about me “ society, I don’t know how much meaningful music can be made if recording artists are constantly referring back to their creations in real time. That’s why recording at home isn’t great. It can breed staleness. The greats of the past didn’t have the technology to immediately judge or relish what they had just created -- time was money, and the technology called for broad strokes. I tried to apply some of this to the process. The end result is a record where only a few of the songs were brought in with any structure or even rhythm. I brought a lot of half-born ideas in on click tracks. I had a few rules:

- Try not to turn around and look at myself too much. Move forward constantly. Work fast! First impressions go a long way. Playback is overrated. 

- If anyone in the room other than myself can play the part needed, they will most likely be doing it rather than me. This makes it much more fun to create and listen to later. Let go of your “little darlings.” Those tiny things that have to be just right when you're listening to yourself on headphones for the 20th time. No one cares. Doesn’t matter. Happy accidents go a long way.

- Leave the room. I know a lot about The Bunker Hill Monument 'cuz it’s right up the hill from Revolution Sound Studios. Having a kickass drummer as a producer demanded my absence a lot, so I could put my trust in his talents and just let him and Andy Pinkham work. They are an incredible team. If you hire people that good and don't let them work, you might as well stay home and flush money down the toilet.

- Think outside the box and be weird. Rock & roll is supposed to be weird. Somewhere along the line it lost a lot of its weirdness. Abbey Road is seriously weird. So is Tattoo You. 

Anyway - check it out and let me know what you think...