368 days ago, I swallowed hard and launched a Kickstarter to fund my first-ever full-length, full-band album, There Will Be Surprises.
30 days, 289 backers, and $24k later, I was given the enormous gift of taking ten songs into the studio with some of my dearest friends and collaborators—recording take after take, listening and re-listening, chipping away over several months until we had found each song’s final form.
Today, it’s finally ready for your ears, tracks 1-10. Together they tell a story, and I hope by the time you get to the end, you feel like you’re someplace different than where you started. I also hope that, by the end, what you want more than anything is to start it over from the beginning. Put on some nice headphones, get yourself a cozy drink, and let it play.
And now, what amounts to the “Acknowledgements” section of a book…
Evan Redwine and Lucas Morton: the two of you know me, my writing, my pet ideas, and my weaknesses so very well, and you steered me in the right direction each and every time, not stopping until we reached the finish line. You’re my Jamie Tartt & Dani Rojas—two aces.
Brandon Hays: you’re rock-solid, tasteful, ever-attentive to the song’s needs, and so much fun to play music with. Hearing you in my headphones while we were recording takes together, I felt like my feet were leaving the ground.
Camille Faulkner and Janie Townsend: playing and singing with you is like riding a bicycle. It’s impossible to forget the magic waiting to happen when we put our heads together, and it fills me with a delight I always know we can return to. So grateful for the special sauce you each threw into the mix.
Becca Jordan and Joey Bradshaw: “Nothing’s Right Side Up” would sound too plain lonely without you both. That song is at its essence a hymn, a corporate song about the human condition, and your voices provide such a comfort at the perfect moment. Thanks for parsing out those dense chorus harmonies note-for-note, and thanks for singing with such beautiful sincerity.
Mele Girma: you lent your voice to this record not only through some killer gang vocals, but through an invaluable friendship that informs the very fabric of these songs.
Mindy Cook: you’re so hardcore that you got up at an hour when God probably doesn’t exist just to catch the perfect sunrise light for my Kickstarter video. You’re an expert vision-catcher who makes the dream come true, and I’m so grateful for our collaboration.
Kyra Hinton: your incredible art has fundamentally changed the way I think of these songs and this album, allowing me and all who listen a way to see this record as well as hear it. Thank you for creating these exquisite portals into another world.
And Kelsey Miller, my heart’s dearest: I simply love when you sing—around the house under your breath, in the car at the top of your lungs, and into a microphone on my album. Your voice is and has always been to me clear and quenching as a glass of cold water. These songs are yours as much as mine.
Congratulations, Drew!! So excited to see this wonderful project, labored and loved into existence, come full term and be presented to the world!
We are richer for it!!
Hear hear!!