REDWOOD SUMMER is an energetic album, with weighty cellos sparring with jangly guitars and multi-layered vocals. The songs are both aggressive and playful, joyful and heavy, Driving anthems make way for waltzy jams, all in a distinctive punk influenced attitude.
“The album began as a whim. I wanted to recapture the sound of easier days, when making music was simpler. I wanted to capture the type of songs writ around a campfire somewhere up in the redwoods of Northern California.
In that sense, I didn’t really have to think much about ‘composing’ the songs. I just let them come, and I didn’t think about re-adjusting, re-thinking, re-tooling them for an external audience at all.
I was lucky enough to be collaborating with the amazing Molly Allis, who happened to be passin’ through town when I really decided only an awesome, raw drummer like her would do on the album. I was also recording with Aaron Ross and Cody Feiler, 2/3 of ‘The Heirs Of Mystery’, (I was the other 1/3) and I completely fell in love with the sound of their voices on anything. On top of that, my luck really took a turn for the better when I got in touch with Chuck Ragan, musical idol and huge influence on my music since the earlier days of Hot Water Music. All these amazing folks agreed to record on the album and it began to take on a life of its own.
At the time my life was solid and yet completely unraveled. I had a job but no real home, hopping from house to house doing house-sitting gigs and trying to figure out what to do next. I say that because I think the album reflects the excitement and strangeness of those times.”
