On November 7, 2011 I was sitting in my studio talking with my good friend, Willie Aron about music, parenting and the techniques for getting that toy ship in the bottle. (really, how do they do that?)
Willie and I are known to have extended conversations during our recording sessions. It’s about 4 hours of talking for every 1 hour of working. I guess, if we were really efficient, we could finish quickly and move on with our day. But what’s the fun in that? Usually our conversations lead to something of value, something that makes our day better. This was all too true on 11.7.11
On this day, I was telling Willie how I really wanted to do a kid’s record, but didn’t want to feel like I was exploiting the genre. In other words, I wanted to be authentic. But what did I want to say?
Confidence has always been an important concept in our family. Teaching my children, Owen and Piper, about feeling secure in who they are is a tool they will use forever. Willie listened intently and then said, “That’s it! You could be the CONFIDENCE guy!” It was so obvious, as most ideas are.
So I ran with it. Between November 11, 2011 and January 11, 2012, I wrote 10 songs. It was an explosion of inspiration. Then between January and May of 2012 I recorded those songs along with 1 other (Monster) that I had written in 2008.
CALL ME A NERD is my most authentic artistic expression of self empowerment and acceptance. I thank my wife Laurie and my children Owen and Piper for inspiring me to be the best father and husband I can be. I thank Willie for helping me find the muse and also for his amazing ears, playing and production advice. It is mainly because of these 4 people that I was able to create this record.
The process was extremely fun and most of the time the ideas just kinda flowed without my thinking too much. It is an artist’s greatest dream to have the antennae up when the muse broadcasts the good stuff.
We all get lucky sometimes. I guess this was my turn!
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