Kickstarter

Hello! Thanks so much for taking the time to check out my kickstarter campaign.

My name is Sam Billen and I live in Kansas (not on a farm, not in a field, but in a very awesome college-town called Lawrence). I've been writing and recording music for about 12 years and while I've had some great experiences releasing albums with record labels, I've decided to release my next album, Places, on my own.

Here's a song from the album called Saltine:

Self-releasing an album is a huge task to take on and it requires a lot of support from fans, friends, family, and, yes - thanks to kickstarter - friendly strangers.

I'm aiming to reach $5000 in one month. That may seem like a big number, but it's the minimum funding amount I need to take this album PLACES (get the pun on the album name?). Seriously though, I have some great things lined up for this album and I need all the help I can get to accomplish those goals.

What are those great things I have lined up, you may ask?

Well, have you ever eaten a kid's meal out of a box shaped like an old car? If so, you've touched my dad's work - he invented this thing! And he's going to be custom engineering a CD case for the album.

My brother Dan Billen, will be doing the design and artwork for the album case. Shoot, he's the best collage artist I've ever seen. Check out his award-winning collage called 'Paper Dali'.

Peerless Mastering will be adding the finishing touches to the album. They've mastered albums by Bon Iver, The Magnetic Fields, Spoon, etc. Need I say more?

Some of the songs on the album have been evolving for over a decade (i.e. 'It is Not a Lie' is a song I wrote a year after my mom died in 2000) and some of the songs are brand new. One thing that all of the songs have in common though is that they represent a huge part of my life - a thread running through every experience I have. I hope I can share that with you through your support of this project.

The rewards you see listed on the right-hand side are aimed at getting EVERY supporter something. If you take the time to read this or take the initiative to drop at least a dollar in support of my project, I want you to walk away with a piece of it.

If you're interested in hearing more of my music, feel free to stroll over to my bandcamp page and start downloading - it's almost all free!

Thank you again SO MUCH for taking the time to read this. Your time and support is worth so much to me.

Sam