throughout our lives, we will come to find ourselves in a lot of different places

a lot of different rooms

a lot of different corners

a lot of different wheres

those wheres will be unexpected. they will surprise us, scare us, change everything, change nothing, and break our hearts

when i was little and my parents split up, my mom and i left home, white suzuki packed full of suitcases and some boxes. i don’t remember the packing, but i do remember the leaving. it was chilly and wet in chicago and i had just learned about my dad’s drinking. the plan was to move in with friends and family while we figured it out

heavy air when we parked the car in a new driveway. my mom and i were both crying, for different reasons, but also some of the same ones. and then, as sure as the first hand clicks from 12 to 1, it all seemed insane and hilarious — the clothes we brought with us, the rain, the drinking, the stupid little stick shift suv

‘we’ll laugh about this some day’

my mom said

and we both laughed. because even though it was hard to leave a marriage and terrible to be soaked with rain and confusing to be a six year old watching it happen, we were alive and together. and at that moment, our where changed. it became a where of friendship and love. not just one of loss

experience is subjective. we get to decide what’s devastating, what’s beautiful, and what we do next. in the books of our lives, we are both protagonist and narrator. and narrators have incredible power. in writing this album, i thought a lot about the places that shape us, and how, in turn, we shape those places in our minds

as human beings living on earth right now, we find ourselves in a very particular where. the planet is getting warmer, the internet is getting bigger, the stakes are as grave as ever. the president of the united states of america is a television celebrity who openly degrades those unlike him (non-white, non-male, non-straight, non-wealthy, non-citizen), whose chief strategist has spent much of his career promoting white nationalism in a country meant to foster diversity and progress through tolerance. a president who intends to limit our freedoms, foment hatred & silence dissent

and yet. every place, every where, is just some place, some where. it’s all arbitrary and fucked up and sometimes lucky. i think you can understand the fact of your own smallness in this world while still celebrating the very particular singularity of who you are and where you happen to stand

look down at your feet and decide what that means. instead of being afraid i’m going to try to be brave, instead of feeling regret i’m going to focus on getting better tomorrow, and instead of hoping that someone else will say it or move it or mean it, i’m going to do it myself

let’s make art and friends and purpose and be good to each other

—

i’m putting out a new album on april 7th called every where is some where. you can listen to the first new song, black wave, right now. it’s about facing something immense and menacing and choosing not to cower, but to rise up.