It is currently 4 am on the morning of Saturday, May 29th. I can't sleep. To be honest, the lack of sleep is due to the fact that I am completely overwhelmed by the generosity of my friends.

Sometime ago, I decided that this new album was going to be different and it wasn't going to have the same old CD release. Lots of musicians/bands have played around with the concept of free music and I wanted to jump on this train. I threw around so many ideas of how to release this album that my close friends and family stopped picking up my phone calls (for a couple of days at least, they do pick up now).

On May 15th of 2008, I heard an interview on NPR about a women who had a fan supported album. I know the exact date because I went immediately to my phone and took notes. Her friends/fans had helped her raise the money to record a new album and she gave them gifts at certain sponsor levels. I thought why not take this to the next level; if an independent artist can raise the money to have all the recording costs taken care of – WHY NOT RELEASE THE CD FOR FREE?

I believe that the current ability and opportunity for anyone to be able to access your music easily through the internet is something that needs to be taken advantage of for independent artists. Yes, we put lots of hours into recording our album. Yes, artists can make money of the sale of their CDs BUT most artists spend years just paying back their record label for recording costs. We have no budget for advertising, marketing campaigns or publicists so we are turning our album into our promotional tool. The payoff is the opportunity for anyone to be able to get our music, hear the songs and one day come experience our music live.

As of 4 hours ago, our album reached the funding goal we set out for. We still have 12 days left for sponsorships – anymore sponsorships at this point would allow us to put even more time and effort into the new album.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting behind my crazy idea to release this album for free and for supporting independent musicians who are working their tail off to be heard in a world of too many independent musicians trying to be heard. More importantly than this album being free, I believe that the musicianship, songs and sound of the recording itself is above and beyond anything I have done previously. Thank you for allowing us to put the needed time and effort into making this new album the best it can possibly be.

Off to try and sleep,

-Andrew

ps - i will start posting exclusive backers only pictures and video from the recording process in the coming days.