STORIES FOR MONDAY: The Album That Almost Wasn’t
It’s MONDAY morning right now.
I’m drinking coffee on my rooftop, overlooking downtown Los Angeles, and I’ve finally had a moment to catch my breath and take in the whirlwind of the last week.
First things first, I just want to say THANK YOU from all of us for the response to Figure Me Out. It is absolutely frightening to be that honest, and that vulnerable, and have people open their arms and embrace it fully. I was speechless. This song means more to me than you will ever know. It’s no secret we took a long time to put some new music out, and I completely forgot what it’s like to get gratification for something you made. There’s no feeling like that in the world, and I can’t believe I almost never let it happen again. Here’s to a new year.
If you haven’t heard yet, our new album STORIES FOR MONDAY, is coming out on April 1st. About time, right? We’re really proud of this one, and truly believe its our best album yet by a mile.
It’s also “The Album That Almost Wasn’t.”
The last thing I remember, we were finishing up Warped Tour 2014, and had been on the road for the better part of 16 straight months. We were exhausted, but there was a new album to be made, and the rest of the band was getting ready to move out of Arizona and come join me in LA. We were gonna be closer together, but we somehow grew further apart. I started writing new songs, and I got completely lost in my own head. Nothing felt genuine, I had nothing honest to say, and I had no idea how to grow as a band, as a business, and as a songwriter. With Legendary, we were given a small taste of the" big leagues,” the finer things, and the radio, and then bad timing led to the radio pulling the rug out from under us. Nothing we could do, but I knew I wanted more, so I put so much pressure on myself to write a bigger, better song. I felt trapped, and started avoiding making a new album by running away from it entirely. I think I went to Mexico three times over the course of seven months. I spent more days on an agave farm outside of Puerto Vallarta learning how to make tequila than I did actually writing songs. It was amazing, irresponsible and absolutely terrifying.
Fortunately for us, while I was traveling the world and hoping a song was gonna come to me, Jess was continuing to grow publicly by pursuing side projects and speaking tours, while John and Stephen were making a new home in LA and getting exceptionally good at learning how to make records themselves. I look back now and realized that saved our band. This album would be nothing without them.
Anyway, over the course of the next year a handful of songs did get written. Some in New York, some in Nashville, only one in Mexico (too drunk), a few in London, and a few at home in Los Angeles as well. Unfortunately I wasn’t sure what to make of any of them, because they all felt disjointed. Nothing seemed cohesive and exciting. I had been told we were missing “a hit,” so I would go back to the drawing board time and time again. I wouldn’t talk to anyone. I distanced myself from everyone. I got so discouraged I called my mom, told her I didn’t want to make music anymore, and went back to Arizona to hide for a few weeks. I didn’t want to make a sound or write a single word.
That’s when I wrote “Figure Me Out,” and all the other songs started to make sense.
It was an accident. I was deliberately trying to not write a song ever again. I didn’t know who I was any more. It was the middle of the night, and I kept fumbling around the phrase “I’m a bit too pop for the punk kids, but I’m too punk for the pop kids.” Then it all just started spilling out. I sat down at my parents piano, in the house I grew up in, played the first chord and sang the words “I believe there’s more to life than all my problems.”
That’s when all the problems went away. Sort of.
It’s really hard to separate art from business. I’m a firm believer that if you aren’t growing, you’re dying. I was still so caught up in the idea that we needed a hit song in order to take this to the next level. I wish I knew six months ago what I know now: You can’t predict a hit song, you can only be so in-tune with yourself creatively and emotionally that people start to pay attention.
Unfortunately this almost got the best of us, and on a melancholy day back in September we sat down as a band at our favorite bar and decided we had “run our course” and that it was time to “break up.” Both Jess and I broke down in tears at our favorite places on earth that day; mine being Disneyland, her’s….the bar.
Before you get sad, I want you to know this was the best thing that’s ever happened to us.
We were free. Mostly from ourselves. I dropped my ego. We stopped giving a fuck about what anyone else thought of us. We were gonna put out one last “farewell album” and call it a day. We stopped looking for a another producer, and decided John and Stephen were good enough to do it all themselves. I stopped trying to write a “hit song” and realized the 11 songs we had in front of us were good enough. In fact, they were GREAT enough. The reality is, once we stopped overthinking it, we realized everything we needed was right in front of us.
We went from nothing to everything and produced the entire album in a month.
The MONDAY after Thanksgiving, three days before we were going to announce our hiatus, Joshua Montgomery called all of us and we talked about how proud of this album we are, and how big of a shame it would be to not give it a fair shot. He convinced us to let go of our pride and realize that this band definitely isn’t done. I’m so happy to say he was right.
We may have had to convince ourselves it was over in order to get this album done, but once we finished the best album we ever made, we realized this story is FAR from over.
In fact, WE’RE GONNA GO ON TOUR. We’re fucking dying to. The STORIES FOR MONDAY tour kicks off April 13th at House of Blues in Anaheim, CA, then takes over the United States. UK, we love you as ever and will be seeing you in May. Rest of the world, stay tuned….we miss you and we will see you soon.
This was almost gonna be our last tour ever, but we’re pretty excited to say that’s just not true anymore :)
I don’t know who it was that said “If you never thought about giving up, you haven’t tried hard enough,” but they were right. Don’t give up when you’re down. The Summer Set is back and better than ever.
That’s our story. What’s yours?
Love,
BLD.
Im so proud of this band. Never give up. Everything's okay in the end and If it's not okay then it's not the end.
