BEHIND THE MUSIC
pictured above is a closet turned bedroom I rented in a converted basement in Boston. Just enough space for the bed and a little studio behind it. At one point it held me and my gf at the time, kinda wild looking back.
Random memories and ramblings about life and events that inspired my music. Upon completion of this page, I’m finding it’s much more personal then expected. More like a damn e-journal than the structured song exposé I had imagined. These stories aren’t meant to toot any horn or create any narrative I’m some sort of successful musical guru giving you his memoirs, but rather… looking back on my life there have been some crazy moments I’d like to share as fun stories or cautionary tales while I still have the faculty to do so. If your takeaway from any of these segments is “yea, fuck that person” you’ve missed the point. Each and every interaction have you have is potentially brimming with the opportunity to learn something about the world, everyone around you, or usually yourself AND people, though sometimes hurting and taking it out on others, aren’t as bad as you think (or at least that what I try and remember). Enjoy it! or dont? It was cathartic nonetheless. Now off to purchase a real diary… 😅 (ps: some names have been abbreviated or changed for privacies sake)
GROWING UP
I grew up in Auburn Hills Michigan, right in between the rough and the ritsy part of town. Looking back, I’m sure this is why I feel fairly comfortable spending time with both groups but never deeply identify with either. My family is comprised of quite religious christians, varying a bit in degrees and specific beliefs, but mostly fall into the devout baptist or non-denominational category. This is something I obviously adopted early but pulled away from in my late teens as I began heavily smoking the devils lettuce and experimenting with hallucinogenics. Once I began dabbling the questions surrounding religion out-weighted the churches broad answers, which often seemed to require more faith than anything. Though religion is not something I align with nowadays, you’ll find a lot of influences musically and quite a few references lyrically, usually used for allegorical purposes.
My father (a pastor of the church) and my mother (a hard working Chrysler employee) despite their religious proclivities did the no pants dance before they were married. This of course resulted in a pregnancy which almost made your boy a bastard. Lucky for me, they attempted to remedy this for me and their god by getting married… the day before I was born... As fate would have it, and as one would expect, this was not the best way to vet out a healthy and working relationship. Life at home was often very turbulent and hard to watch. At the end of the day and probably throughout, they would pray to god for assistance but none was found (or if it was, I didn’t noticed amongst all the shouting)
I learned through all this, you can’t change anyone or help them out of something they don’t want help out of. You can only wait and be there for them when they’re ready.
From a young age my father was in and out of the house, sometimes living with my mom and I, and sometimes living on his own to pursue other women or a life away from the hectic home environment he and my mom created. It was almost better when he was gone, as I could sometimes travel back and forth between apartments and have a relatively relaxing time with each of them independently. Something I took note of growing up: my dad was always well dressed and always acted kind to random strangers he met throughout the day, while the rest of the spectrum of emotions were saved for my mother behind closed doors. I used to attribute this to being two faced, but the older I get, the more I think he just didn’t know how to handle being in intimate relationships. Before that realization I wrote a song about it 🤣
Though I don’t have many, the most fond memories of my father are riding together in his car (probably to the flea market) and listened to oldies CDs, which were usually comprised of Doo-Wop classics. Without these moments, I wouldn’t have written tracks like Alibi or Ride or Trendy. In fact, thinking on this now, most of the early tracks have some sort of doo wop inspired vocal stacking I learned due to repeated listening on those rides.
OOOOLD PROJECTS
When I first first started producing on garageband, the way I learned to make music was by listening to popular songs, breaking down each instrument, recreating them, and then trying to replicate a similar song with those same sounds.
It just so happened to be right around time owl city, hellogoodbye, and passionpit were gaining momentum… so needless to say, it was romantically cheesy as hell and full of emo esque autotune haha. Embarrassing or not we all start somewhere, and I started with Stereofarm (or the nicholas monjarez project or something else, as i kept switching the name but abandon the page on stereofarm hehe). Listen at your own risk ⚠️
MOVING TO LA
RicHard & THe Second SUN
The message went something like this… “Love your music. You should come out to LA and make an album with me. I’ll pay for everything; your travel, stay, food, all of it. I also know people here who we can pitch to once it’s done.” The offer sounded too good to be true and as usual it sort-of was? sort-of? This email found me as I sat, squeezed into the “studio” / closet in my mothers house. During this period of time I’d recently moved home from Boston, tired, heartbroken, and close to giving up on my dream of becoming a “famous dubstep DJ” lol. Given all this, I was eager to accept (especially if you listened to the tracks in “old projects 😆).
Now for the “prestige”. Turns out the fellow ALSO lived with his mother, who was informed I was coming to stay with them AS I WAS ON THE TRAIN OVER. Wowowowow, what a start. Richard came to meet me at the train station in an old beat up sports car. The muffler was missing, the inside was so full of trash he had to scoop it over and off onto the floor to give me room to sit, and the whole air about him lazily muttered “I’ve been up for multiple days with no sleep and will now drive you home to pass out”. Not exactly the introduction I was hoping for but I’d been around and met a decent amoount of people on the fringes so it was easy to play it somewhat cool. (reminds me of PA Nate, which hopefully i’ve covered before or after this segment 🤞)
ANYWAYZZZZ. Richard was the product of an unfortunate storm of circumstances, but in all honesty, we found each other during very similar moments in life. He had like me been home locked with dreams which seemed a bit too far out of reach, except how we each arrived at this place was quite different. Richard had attended college for some high end math / stats degree and, while attending school, found himself deep in the world of online gambling. His mind was brilliant when it came to numbers / probabilities and he’d actually learned how to exploit some insane loophole in a particular online gambling site which he liberally used to rake in HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS, all before he left his dorm room. This money, along with his love for edm, allowed a temporary and lavish life of festivals, trips, hotels, bottle service, you name it. But all good things come to an end, and the bottle service ran dry one day when the online gambling company got wise and fixed the loophole. This left Richard with no money, a lifestyle he was used to but couldn’t afford, and a severe gambling addiction. This addiction would ruin his life and the relationship with his mother who he constantly tricked into giving him money for this or that under the promise it was for a good cause, only to be spent and lost trying to strike it rich on another hand. To top it all off, he had lost his father a few years back and then more recently his production partner, who he was betting on to help create the tracks which would put him back in the lavish life he so desired.
This, I would come to find, was the reason I was there. His last pony in the race. The final hail Mary ticket to either heaven or a deep grave. The latter, he admitted some time later, was almost turned to out of utter hopelessness just before we met. Laid out in such a dire way all of this sounds like a total mess and it was. But somehow, this moment in time was also extremely educational and helpful for both of us (at least for a time). In some weird and twisted way we needed each other and the following 8 months would prove to be both insane and magical at the same time. It’s important I also give mention and credit to Richards mother in all of this. A saint of a woman who had recently lost her husband to one illness and her only son to another. She was lonely as ever, hauled up in this big ol house, driving long distances to work every day for her sons future, only to be tricked into losing it all again and again. When I first arrived there was obviously a lot of tension (as I was an unknown and very unexpected guest) but over time, as I attempted to mediate and help her and her son find harmony, we grew closer and she grew an appreciation for our shared dynamic which brought a period of peace and love to her broken home. One day, when we were all out to dinner and having what must have been one of the few kind and normal family outings they had been on in some time, his mother earnestly thanked me for everything and said “you are now like my second son”. This is a compliment and moment I’ll never forget as I really felt for her. In this moment I was extremely grateful and relieved to know she was better off for a situation which could have been seen as the extreme burden of taking care of a complete stranger. AHHHH, SOUP PLANTATION.
OK NOW BACK TO THE BEATS. Our routine was simple and effective (when we had one, which was actually rare so come to think of it we had no routine at all). It consisted of long days in the studio and long nights on the Hollywood strip. On studio days Richard’s insanely meticulous and thorough way of seeing the world taught me a lot. We would spend large part of the day breaking down popular house / electro / dub tracks and recreating synths, another portion learning about reverbs / delays / timing to practice and perfect musical transitions, and the rest going apeshit on whatever idea we had at the time. Usually I would start the idea and then Richard would help guide and hone it, bringing out the best in whatever half formed brainstorm was stuck in my head. (i wrote the following section to be read while the track below is played. for best results bump that shiiii and read on)
THEN CAME THE HOLLYWOOOD NIGHTS which would give me my first real taste of Los Angeles and all it’s heavenly vices MMMMM. These nights would often go something like this… ONE: get overly hype about what we made in the studio and build lots of frenetic energy. TWO: pop one of his prescribed Klonopin to put a false bottle cap on said energy. THREE: choose one of 4 or 5 typical clubs we would frequent and drive there. FOUR: park and heavy hand whatever sort of liquor we had at our disposal before leaving the vehicle. Five: as the slight haze from both the Clonazepam and the alcohol sets in talk to the ticket lady and shmooze her. Mention you remember her from last time and the show last week was awesome yadayada this and that all trying to squeeze a free ticket or A ticket out of a sold out show. SIX: now the fuked combo you just ingested really starts to set in. Struggle bus your way to the line and mingle there for a bit, acclimating to the social setting before entering the club (this is where I would one time meet steve urkel who denied a photo op cus “can’t you see i’m with two fine hunnies right now” lewl) SEVEN: Get inside and buy $15 well drinks at the bar, squeeze your way into the crowd and vibe. EIGHT: when the crowd gets into it, study the song and find out why it sounds so damn good on the PA system. Is it the sample vocal? Is it the bass? how many subs are they layering? are the drops different? how do they transition out? NINE: muster the courage to talk to and strike out with any and all girls you approach cus you’re a fkin nerd. TEN: get out of the club and if you’re still conscious, grab a street dog from one of those hotdog ladies you would later find out is actually used to rinse the cartels money. ELEVEN: Pass tf out in the car and wake up some unknown time later. TWELVE: Drive home. These nights were part study, part party, and often resulted in great ideas in the studio. It’s important to stay excited not only about what you’re creating, but also the scene you’re creating it for. Know and love your audience and the experience. Drugs optional.
(if you’re familiar with smallville press play on this next track and read on. if not you can prob skip ahead. or don’t idk)
RANDOM FUN MEMORY SIDEQUEST: this one time we were out with one of changs friends and we ended up at this club “opening”. we didn’t have one of the ACTUAL BRASS KEYS they passed out to get in (bougie fks) so we bribed the door guy $20 and it actually worked THAT SHIT ACTUALLY WORKS IT’S NOT JUST IN MOVIES. When we get inside she (his friend) gets slightly uncomfortable and keeps looking over. After a little prodding she admits there is “a guy over there who I hooked up with and he never called me back”. I glance over and ITS THE GUY WHO PLAYS SUPERMAN IN SMALLVILLE LOOOOOL. Definitely not what you would expect from a wholesome small town CW superhero. Now I’m laughing and she’s crying cus I can’t stop picturing them having sex, him putting the tights and cape back on, and then promptly and swiftly flying back out the window, never to be seen again. Good times. Sorry Sarah.
Richard and I would rinse and repeat this insane method until we had a good chunk of songs. After all the uncertainty around what was real and what wasn’t in the initial email proposal, he did eventually come thru with multiple contacts who we passed our music to. One of those contacts ended up being my eventual music manager Kyle aka KEB. Another and earlier contact was a guy named Reiks who helped us get our very first deal with YourEDM records for an EP called “Artifacts”. Feel free to take a listen below, but realize in advance, it’s nothing like what you would expect to hear come out of your speakers if you hit shuffle on Clans spotify today (those days were strictly club beatzzz). Good or bad (kinda bad overall tbh), what I do appreciate about the tracks we created is they were (musically) leagues above what I was ever able to do on my own in the electronic music genre. They had much better structure, flow, and overall consistency. The future tracks we created that would never come to light were even better but so it goes.
I’ll spare you all the detail surrounding the collapse of that period of time as it’s drawn out and unfortunate. What I will say is it ended with a mother calling the police on her own son, a pawned off laptop with an unfathomable amount of unfinished tracks, and a stolen identity (from which I’m still trying to recover). This period of time was fast and crazy and I knew what I was signing up for. Nothing in life is free but in the end, without Richard and his guidance and the insane view he gave me into Hollywood and the electronic music scene, I’d probably still be stuck in my mothers home, dreaming about a life I was too afraid to try for.
THE EL CERRITO APARTMENT & RE-DISCOVERING MY VOICE
After a brush with insanity during my stay in the valley, it was time to turn the ol’ sights to Hollywood. After a brief stint in a less than ideal cockroach infested shoebox apartment, located in the heart of Little Armenia, my manager KEB and I decided to go in on a top floor apartment with his friend Duncan (and later on, Duncans artist Dexter as well). This was easily one of the best decisions and times of my life. Not only were we all excited and “coming up” in the scene, but our apartment had in-home rooftop access meant for “maintenance calls”, which we liberally used to host rooftop dance parties.
At the time, coming out of 4 years of strict EDM producing and DJing in Boston, this guy was all dubstep and house baby! Not a single singing bone in my body… Even though I had spent the former years (from 20 and before) as a singer / songwriter, somehow it didn’t click to add vocals to any of the tracks in progress. This was most likely due to the full emersion i’d taken into the nightclub and DJ scene while electronic music was having it’s big moment into the mainstream. Little did I know this would be the place where a majority of La Royalty would be written & recorded.
It was random afternoon and we were all workin on our respective projects when someone mentioned finding an old microphone in their closet. It must have been in reference to one of us wanting to record some sort of deep voice or drop sample for this or that “banger”, in parenthesis of course because I’m not sure I ever did write an electronic “banger” (see previous projects above if you don’t believe me 🤣). Not sure exactly how it happened but I remember seeing the microphone and singing something random, out of old habit I suppose, and the vibe of the room suddenly changed. Duncan exclaimed “what the fuck, YOU CAN SING”? This was followed by multiple remarks from the others about how I need to make vocal forward music. All these comments were sort of brushed off with a “yea idk, I don’t really make that kind of music anymore”.
They were clearly impressed enough that this answer would not suffice. The energy in this moment was exciting enough, I hopped into the studio, wrote a little riff and proceeded to record vocals. The music that would come out of this moment, and my first foray into what would eventually become clans, was called “Ghost Story”. This track was followed by many other vocal experiments, which can be found on the “Demolicious” Album.
La ROYALTY & THE L.A. FACADE
LA Royalty was born out of the idea of warped personas.
We were all hustling in LA, working multiple jobs and going out as much as possible to meet the right people and working late nights in the studio to what sometimes felt like no point or end. This type of lifestyle should perhaps be appreciated for its diligence or respected for it’s and consistency, but instead it became glamorized by either our friends and family out of state who all thought we’d “made it” just because we’d escaped our hometowns, or by ourselves when we went out on the town and let our egos fly, acting like we were hot shit even though we were scraping by to pay rent. It’s an easy thing to do in Los Angeles when the scene is either filled with celebrities or wannabe celebs who are doing their best to fit in. One of the photoshoots for the EP (see right) revolved around a fashionable looking pool boy, which I felt properly sums up the way we are lived back then.
Ode to the King of Nothing is all about this ego disconnect within yourself and within the scene. After a fumbled opening, the story teller asks you to give him space so he can wow you with his immense talent. The first verse and chorus are simply brags about how well he makes music. Then enters the second verse which is more bragging, but followed by a slight confession about being somewhat delusional in this perspective. And finally, the last chorus is the truth about his state of affairs: broke, living in his van, and looking for cheap nights to fill him up, all of which were true for me during that period of time. Whats the point of being a self proclaimed king of a pile of dirt?
Queen of California came out of a period of time when I was trying very hard to meet women on tinder or in the scene and was doing my best to pretend cool, which was almost always seen right through and swiftly dismissed. I wish I could say it was an extremely humbling experience for the ego but I think it just made me learn how to be more “likable” when meeting people for the first time (something I’m trying to unlearn as time goes on, as that shit is tiring). Lately, i’ve found it’s best to just be yourself, be kind, and the right people will find you. “I try and I try and I try and I try”
La Overture, despite its upbeat nature, is a sad one for me. If you spend enough time in the city (probably any city) you’ll find LA is such a force it swallows most people whole, yet keeps them alive. You move to the city with big dreams and want to make it so bad that all of the things you tell yourself you’ll never do start coming true. It easy to do when everyone around you starts compromising as well just for this part or that connection. Soon all of your small town morals and beliefs are replaced with the idea that if you give enough of yourself to the city it will give back. This is the real lie of LA. Some see this early and leave, some give and give til they give up and some go into the machine long enough they get spit out the other side shiny, perfect, and plastic. Despite being around the idols of the world, it can be a very lonely place. These of course are my own thoughts and feelings and perhaps others will totally disagree but 🤷. It gets so cold in Los Angeles.
Trendy is fairly self explanatory, as the lyrics are right to the point and in your face, but I suppose there is 1 fun thing to note. It was written during an LSD trip in a makeshift studio I created at my desk in a corporate office, after-hours when everyone else had gone home and I was alone with my thoughts and a tab of acid. The world has changed so much since this was written, yet we’re still heading down the same path. Fast trends / having popularity online / spending all your time on a screen will leave you feeling unaccomplished & unfulfilled, devoid of sustainable habits and real human connection.
RELATIONAL / Crush - SHI(P)S
D & The 3 part heartache
D was the first person I fell in love with after moving to Los Angeles (although I thought there were many others at the time). She was a PHD student who decided to drop out of med school to pursue her dream of being a blues rock artist (very rock n roll shit). We first met on hollywood blvd at a job where I sold “half off” goods to oblivious tourists who didn’t know any better.
QUICK SIDE NOTE CUS THIS PLACE WAS WILD Y’ALL (store pictured on right). This fkin place was always “going out of business” and it was my job to stand inside and convince people the store was CLOSING FOR GOOD IN 30 MINUTES EVERY 30 MINUTES using a wireless microphone which blasted throughout the store. “The Ten Dollar Boutique” lol was definitely one of the crazier jobs I had but it was kinda fun if you forgot about all the money people were pouring into random ass trinkets they didn’t need because they thought it was a steal… (forgive and forget, forgive and forget hehe) ANYWHOOOOO while in this insane black friday frenzy (maybe it was a chill day but whatever) I met this woman who said she was shopping for her brother and family (which we will later find out was oh but a half truth ooops) and was apparently in town looking at apartments before making the move from Canada. I gave her my number but after about a month and a half of waiting, all hope was lost. BUT ALAS! it was quickly restored one day out of the blue when she finally reached out, informing me of her recent move, boredom, and desire to explore the city. From that moment on we hit the ground running and fell fast.
This could have been the end of the story, but unluckily for me & lucky for you, trouble was just around the corner. A few months after dating she decided to take a trip back to Montreal to visit her friends and then back to Lebanon to visit family. Though on the surface this seemed find, something felt off and I was somewhat concerned about her ex who she had broken up with prior to moving (OR SO I THOUGHT HOOOLY SHIIIIIII PLOT TWIST). We talked about it at length and I was assured everything was tooootally fine. Despite the re-assurance I felt like this trip might be goodbye, so I wrote the song By the Sea partly for me and partly for her. Not the best tune i’ve written, but thats because shit hadn’t totally hit the fan… yet.
Cut to mid Canada escapade. Fishy Fishy stuff starts happening. Stories don’t line up and she’s actin shady ((ain’t callin me baby) iykyk). Its hard to explain what happened next because it’s one of the oddly nuanced relational happenings, kinda like a Paul Thomas Anderson film. One night I hit a limit and say something like “I know you’re hooking up with your ex and it’s over”. She denies it, starts crying, a whole broadway production is had and then somehow, we both just knew that we both knew… if that makes sense. It’s like we both chose to accept and live with this lie so peace could be had and the relationship could continue. Later on, I would learn more about the term “cognitive dissonance” haha but I digress (ooo fancy).
SO! When D left Canada, and the guy SHE NEVER ACTUALLY BROKE UP WITH TFFFFF (which I only found out later on) I chose to write a song about the whole experience called Alibi, about knowing theres something shitty going on but choosing to accept the alibi your loved one has given you regardless. This song would go on to become my first “viral song” on spotify and was really the turning point in my career that led me to where I am today. Wherever that is…
For the final act of this three part heartbreak series. One thing leads to another, the truth comes to light (i snooped 😬 but hey its ok if i find something right?😬😬) we end up staying together in this wild and toxic relationship for about a year and a half, and then things naturally come to their wild and explosive end. That relationship really brought out the worst in both of us which I still regret to this day. And even after all the lies and all the mistrust and all the shouting, it should have been easy to leave but it wasn’t. It really fucked ur boi up. D had been living in Glendale, and after the breakup she decided to go back home for a bit. It was only then I felt comfortable driving around the area where we had made so many memories, good and bad but together. After driving around and crying like a baby, I took those emotions back to my “studio”, which was at that time was the storage room in a corporate office I worked at, and wrote and recorded Glendale. It’s meant to feel like that post breakup rollercoaster of missing, thinking you’re getting over it, missing them again, and then finally reaching some sort of melancholy solace. Most friends and maybe myself? regard this song as my best work. Maybe it is, or maybe we’re all just fucking sad sometimes.
All in all our relationship was a valuable experience I’m very thankful to have had. Truth be told, I wasn’t the patron saint Niko either. Holding on that long turned me dark and near the end I was often the one being the big ol jealous asshole 💩. Sometimes letting go of something might seem harder at first but it just might save you from much more heartache and becoming something you don’t want to be. Despite all this I still appreciate and admire how passionate and badass she was at pursuing what she wanted most, despite what anyone else expected of her. Not to mention, she gave me a true appreciation and love for blues rock and introduced these ears to the Rival sons 🤘 & for all this, I am forever grateful.
E & the ETERNAL blue
After the first iteration of the Clans band had fully formed, I would often hang out at my friend / lead guitarist Roman’s place in Echo Park. Like many who play, Roman had and I’m sure still has a deep love obsession with D&D and would hold campaigns at his place for whatever random assortment of friends happen to be interested (good man). This is where I would first meet E. The first campaign I walked in on consisted of E, her boyfriend at the time, and a few other. But as time went on, so did their love and I ended up taking the empty spot for a following conquest. One thing to another and I, or should I say “Juicifer the squeeze” LVL? blind mage with magical rubber duckey (see image right there), eventually asked her out to dinner.
Our first date was quite the experience. That night, before meeting her at some seafood this or that in THE GROVE (ooooooh, who cares) I was informed my roommate at the time had been in a highway accident and so I called and let her know I’d be running late as I “needed to make sure he was ok before doing anything else.” This was taken as an elaborate lie and so she began the night without me. When I arrived, her fish was on the table, 2 glasses of red wine were in her belly, and a good amount of tears were in the napkin beside her.
These tears were of course not due to the assumed cancellation, but rather for her ex boyfriend who she was clearly not over. I should have given her a hug, ate my meal, and left it at that, but back then I collected red flags like badges of honor and my doods, I was decorated AF. Having said that, and to her credit, I would soon find out E was awesome, a true showman, funnier than most people I know, and deeply gentle in her own way.
Though all of this was true, E also struggled with a lot emotionally and would often sink into deep depressive bouts which would leave her bedridden for an evening to a few days at a time. After many months of intense relationship dynamics and failure to help even though I tried, we ended up on thin ice (all of which would begin to intensify as the brett kavanaugh case ignited the world and the #metoo movement hit full stride). My strained relationship, this case, and the national divide that was multiplying by the second, all fueled the fire that would become “Good times in the USA”. It was meant to be a critical take on each side of the divide, both the furious and swift cancel culture and the absurd and blanketed trump mania. But since then I’ve learned people often hear what they want to hear and glaze over any opposing perspectives. Either way this one is near and dear to me as it’s my only real country-esque, parody ride.
Near the end of our relationship it was hard to even fight, as there was often a palpable “why bother” atmosphere to the whole thing. When it wasn’t a why bother situation, it tended to look like both of us at our wits end, in a bedroom, exhausted from… fighting (cmon get ur head of of the gutter, we were in deep turmoil you sick fk). If you fight often, you know it’s easy to look at a situation and feel you’ve somehow been wronged, without taking responsibility for your part in the matter. This idea, along with the exhaustion of it all, gave way to a little diddy called “Home is where the Heartache”
E and I broke up on Christmas while she was stuck in an airport missing her family and I was stuck in Hong Kong, on an elected and extended work trip I would later get in trouble for (wooopsie daisy). It was such an exhausting thing trying to make us work all that time that when she asked for some sort of comfort or solace in the airport, I simply didn’t have the words. I was numb. One of the last things she said to me was “I’ve just been trying to make you care. You either have that spark or you don’t, and you just don’t”. It was met with a long sad silence, and then a simple goodbye. Such an odd feeling being numb, sad for her, and disappointed in myself all at the same time. During the trip I had purchased a Ukulele and that Christmas night, alone with my own thoughts in a small rented room, wrote “new years blues”.
This relationship was a very eye opening experience I wouldn’t do over any other way. It taught me no matter what people seem like on the outside, often times they are still hurting from this or that on the inside. It’s quite simple and cliche but so true and important to remember whenever you meet new friends or random strangers, to be kind because you have no idea what that persons carries with them every single day. Each one of my intimate partners up until this point all struggled with something that was never shown on the surface but ate away at them deeply. It’s both comforting and sad to know most of us live this way. E and this sad truth are who and what I wrote the song “the color blue” for. (E if you ever hear this, please don’t sue me for using your voicemail in the intro, or do IDGAF, jk please don’t it didn’t make any money)
There are many more stories and behind the music moments i’d like to tell, and as time goes on many more will be added to this page. Stay tuned as they will be updated each week until the summer of 2023.