BLACKSTONE

BLACKSTONE — this Fall 2019 release, is the record I didn’t have the guts to put out a some years ago. I was experiencing a rough patch in my life and the poor thing just didn’t get the light of day it deserved.

So, a few of us have dusted her off, added a few things, and have finally brought this beautiful beast forward.

From it’s origin, Producer / Songwriter Frank Gryner, was “the guy” to walk the album forward with me. I was completely compelled by the idea of making a record that sounded and felt like my tribes Reservation.

Every morning I’d wake-up to something that was — black oak forest, buzzsaws, family working on cars, gatherings, shotguns, crow arguing, winds bending yellow grass, aimless tarantulas, diamondbacks sliding through the dust, and rusted pick-up trunks being swallowed up by the earth.

To me we got the record the sounding something like a large organic rusty moan — which this woman’s type of gorgeousness. Frank and I took all these influences and mixed it through my lens.

At the time, I was especially into my tribes stories — a good handful of them involving animals. I also got into revisiting a collection of Aesop fables I grew-up listening to. I loved how these simple stories packed punches of wisdom. It became a quiet challenge of mine to write as many songs as I could in a similar way. It was tough — turns out what the badass writers of all centuries have said is true, writing so simply is not so simple.

To make the sound happen — Frank and I reimagined a drum kit by throwing trash cans at concrete and hit hand drums made of tree trunks so large they were too heavy to hold. We found ways to make double basses and flutes moan and tweaked a resonator guitar to a place that was so unruly it’s voice became a saw-like howl.

Hope you enjoy this lovely beast of a record we’re calling, BLACKSTONE.