i am not famous

1 HOUR :: HOUSES

We’re an hour away from a monumental day for Chris and I.  We just spent a few hours together listening to the masters and preparing to release to all of you.  It’s crazy to think of all the hours of writing and preproduction, to recording, to overdubs, to mixing, to mastering, to artwork, and every other facet of putting a record out went into this one moment.  There are entirely too many people to thank.  My parents have been the most supportive people in this process.  Their patience blows my mind.  Chris Garmon and everyone at Regenerate Music Company that believed in this record to give it a chance, I will never understand that. Matt Goldman, wow.  What a dude.  Chris and I are STILL blown away that we had the opportunity to make this record with Matt and are humbled by his hard work.  I’ve not had such a great learning experience in a studio in my life.  I’m a aspiring producer myself, so I had so much to learn from him.  But I’m also aspiring to be a well-rounded, wise man.  And I believe that I learned more from Matt about that in the month that we spent together working on this record than I did about the recording process. And then when we went to Chattanooga to do overdubs with Lane Johnson, I couldn’t have been any more happy. Lane has an incredible ear for really cool things.  And doing overdubs with him was a real treat.  Writing this record with Chris was an interesting thing, as I hadn’t really ever approached a record the way that we wrote this one.  But, Chris and I were going through many of the same things at the same time, so it was easy to be on the same page and just put our hearts onto paper together. Matt, Troy, Alex, Hunter, Chris, and everyone that contributed musically to this record really showed me up.  The ideas they brought to the table and even their execution of my ideas was far beyond what I expected. Tayler, Cat, Angela, Mason, Chad, Seth, Codi, Alex, Justin, Zach, and everyone else who stopped by the studio while I was recording, you have no clue what that meant.  It’s great to see familiar faces that aren’t distractions when you’re that far away from home for that long trying to pour everything you are into one product. And there are countless people to thank along the way.  People that kept me alive.  People that inspired me.  People that didn’t let me give up.  People that pushed me to better myself.  There are people like my good friend, Jake, in New York, who mean the world and more to me and  I close my eyes when I listen to these songs and I wonder if he’ll like them, if these songs will resonate inside of his heart and in his soul.  I wanted to make a record to tell my story, to tell our story, and to hope that you find your story somewhere in there.  There are my great friends at home like Andrew and Kerry who couldn’t care less about my musical ability and love me for who I am, but still support me and challenge and encourage me to keep doing what I do.  I’ve got so many people to thank.  So many people I’m indebted to for this.  And there’s no way I’ll ever repay every gracious thing that’s ever been given to me.  

But this is what I can give:

I’ve lived in a lot of houses in my life, but most of them have not felt like home.

To my friends, to my family, to my world, to my Creator,

This is “Houses”. I’m on my way home.