New Single: Don’t Wanna Feel

I love music. Writing it, playing it, dancing to it. But, despite having a house full of musical instruments and years of vocal training, my favorite way to interact with music is still as a listener. It was a childhood spent singing along to Chieftains cassettes and choreographing dances to the newest *Nsync CD that sparked my passion for music, and, even as an adult, the first remedy I reach for when I’m suffering from some emotional ill is a pair of headphones and a long walk.

Below, I’ve listed some of my favorite albums I’ve discovered over the last couple of years, curated with the audience at Fertile Ground Gathering in mind. I’ve also included links to the other artists who performed in 2023 and 2024 so that you, whoever you are who is hopefully reading this, can support them as well. These songs have all touched me in some way, some more intensely than others but all in the way I needed them to. I hope you find a few new songs to add to your favorite playlist or the next album you plan to buy.

Hello! I’m back from the grave to once again kill the mood (one of my favorite party tricks). So where have I been?  What am I bitching into the void about today? You’re going to have to click the link to find out.

We’re likely all familiar with the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They don’t always happen in that order or so neatly delineated, and we don’t just experience them after a death. The end of a relationship can trigger them as well - and this EP that I’ve been dripping out one song at a time touches on many of those experiences; “Don’t Wanna Feel” is about denial and depression (and includes a little bargaining), “Muscle Memory” touches on acceptance, and “Moth Wings” dips its toes into depression… “The Commandment” speaks to anger and acceptance which combine to become righteous rage.

If you’ve been following along with all my single releases and accompanying essays over the last several months, first let me thank you for taking this journey with me and for taking the time listen and read. Secondly, you may have noticed the threads I’m trying to weave together with the songs and artwork. With the upcoming release of Muscle Memory, it finally feels like enough of the pieces are fitting together that you can get a sense of the whole picture.

Performing as a singer-songwriter often means I share my most personal moments with a crowd of strangers, whether that’s through a song or stage banter. Don’t get me wrong, I fictionalize plenty (never let the truth get in the way of a good story, as they say in the writer’s rooms of Nashville), but there’s a thread of truth in every lyric. Over the years, I’ve found the songs that feel the most personal, the most like I’ve poured my soul directly onto the page, tend to be the ones that go over like a lead balloon on stage. Moth Wings is the exception that proves the rule.

Don’t Wanna Feel is out in the world and I was lucky enough to have it premiered by the Universal Music Collective! Read the full premiere at the link below and explore the rest of UMC while you’re there. They do an amazing job discovering, sharing, and supporting independent music.

With my new single Don’t Wanna Feel coming out July 31st (although it’s available RIGHT NOW on Patreon), I thought I might share a little of the story behind the song. It’s one of my favorite compositions on the EP, both because of how much more harmonically complicated it is than a lot of what I write and how fun it’s been to perform live.

It’s finally time to release the first single off my upcoming EP, Force of Nature, and let’s just say it’s been an interesting process. But that’s alright. I want to make the biggest impact I can with my music, but I’m really in it for the art and this is some of the best art I’ve ever made.

I often feel like for my creativity to mean something, it has to be channeled the “right” way. It must be directed into songwriting or album art or a merch print. But it doesn’t. It brings me as much joy at the moment to experiment with a new recipe as it does to work on album art, and I’m down for anything that can bring joy into my life right now. Creativity is everywhere and the energy that drives it isn’t always going to be a song or a perfect painting. Sometimes the simpler, more practical applications of creativity are what you need.

To describe the current state of things as “high weird” would be both an understatement and too flippant, but I don’t really know how else to explain it. I don’t want to be dire, but from what medical professionals and public health experts are saying, it’s most likely going to get worse before it gets better. The best thing most of us can do is try to stay home as much as possible. Many of us suddenly have way more free time on our hands and I can tell you how easy it is to fill that time with worry and speculation. But, seeing as I wound up living the quarantine life a bit earlier than much of America, I can share with you how I've filled/am filling my time and hopefully give you some inspiration for what to do with the lonely hours.