the Making of Rebels and Dreamers

Chapter II

How it started

In the fall of 2019, we began tracking at Sound of Music Studios in Richmond, Virginia, with John Morand on what we thought would be our follow up full-length LP to my 2018 release Virginia. We had completed two of the tracks from that album at Sound and thought it was a good idea to pick up where we left off. The line-up was finally consistent and The Piners were becoming a good band. I wanted to capture that sound in the next record.  I decided that we would make a record all together in a room, recorded live, with a real band, raw, human, and with as few takes as possible- the way records used to be made. So, I booked us time and we started recording. We cut four basic tracks at Sound during this short period from November to December and were hoping to book more studio time in the spring.

 No one knew what was on the horizon, but in March of 2020 the world shut down… and so did our studio. The world fell into a tailspin; complete chaos ensued, and none of us really knew the impact of a novel Corona virus. Stuck in limbo, we weren’t sure what to do next.  We watched and waited. People were getting sick and dying, and it was really scary. The music we were making took a back seat to what was happening around us and our primary goal was to stay safe and healthy.   

In April I was shocked to learn that legendary singer-writer John Prine died at age 73. It wrecked me. John is and will always be my hero. The finest American songwriter that ever lived (hate me… I believe he’s the best).

 There was nothing we could do.  Public gatherings were restricted, and people were quarantined at home. Live music stopped everywhere. Our studio would not reopen for another couple years, and we were left with nothing to show but a couple unfinished tracks.  The world was eerily quiet, and we waited, and waited, and waited some more.

Chapter III

Shoot Out at the not so O.K. Corral

This is a terrible title for what I’m about to tell you, but it’s true and thankfully everyone is ok now.

 By 2021 music venues and recording studios we’re finally starting to open at a limited capacity, and we even did some one-off shows. We were invited to play Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion in September of that year. This was a big deal for us as it was our first appearance on a major festival as an independent artist. We even got mentioned in a little write up in Paste Magazine about the festival. In 2023 Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion was rated #3 by USA Today as one of the top ten festivals in the country.

That summer it seemed like we were back on track, so I found another studio and booked some time with our good buddy Thomas “Rusty” Scott, owner, operator, and engineer of The Ward Studio in Richmond, VA. Rusty gave us an opportunity to start working on the record again and I felt like it was the fresh start that we all needed.

We started closing the loop on unfinished tracks and laying down new ones. Things were looking up and we began to make a lot of progress. The songs were really coming together. Unmixed they were starting to sound really good out of the board. I was getting excited about what we were accomplishing after such a long time of not doing anything. We stuck to our original approach: live, in a room, raw, with as few takes as possible, and minimal overdubs.

Rusty’s a wild dude. He runs a studio on the third floor of this hundred-year-old building that’s sits right on Broad Street. It’s just south of the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood and a couple of blocks from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). This part of downtown used to be a bustling metropolis with department stores such as Miller and Rhoads and Thalhimers as well as ‘Mom and Pop’ businesses that lined both sides of the street. Up until 1949 there was an electric streetcar that ran right down the middle of Broad. My grandmother used to tell me stories about how she’d hop a train from Charlottesville to Richmond on Saturdays to go shopping and catch a matinée movie in that area. For the last 20 years that part of town had become dilapidated and seemed to be surviving only due its proximity to VCU’s campus. By the summer of 2021 Broad Street looked like a scene from Orwell’s 1984 with windows bordered up and spray painted due to protests that erupted in Richmond after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer the previous year. The same protests would initiate and eventually  lead to the removal of Confederate statues throughout the city.

In order to get up to Rusty’s studio you have to take multiple flights of stairs or an old freight elevator to the third floor which opens into this big open layout that gives pre-World War II warehouse vibes.  Rusty said the building was an old Studebaker automobile showroom back in the day. The studio is reminiscent of a clubhouse you wish you built when you were a kid complete with vintage pin ball machines and all. Anything goes. Rusty’s been engineering and playing music in Richmond for years and he uses this archaic multi-track recording interface called RADAR to record. This is way over my head and I’ll leave it to the nerds, but RADAR, Random Access Digital Audio, is a precursor to digital recording and its software/system was developed to preserve a tape-like-quality in recording. Anyway, above my paygrade. So, we dove back into the tracks and started cutting new ones.

Since my last release in 2018 I wanted to have pedal steel on my next album, so I started to look around for a pedal steel player that would complement The Piners orchestration. Neil “Steel” Jones if a fantastic pedal steel player from Cookeville, Tennessee, and someone I’d been following on social media for some time now. Neil plays in a band called American Aquarium. He’s a real deal Nashville cat. You can also catch him down on Broadway from time to time playing in the honky-tonks. To say Neil is talented is understatement. His approach to pedal steel really pushes the boundaries of the instrument. It’s awesome. I reached out to Neil via social media, and he obliged. I sent him the rough mixes and he began layering the pedal steel tracks and shipping ‘em back to me. We started putting it all together at Rusty’s.

 Around this same time, I started communicating with a very talented engineer in Nashville in hopes that they would mix my record.  To my shock they were interested and said yes. That same year said engineer would win a Grammy- upping the ante- but I’ll come back to this later. 

 On the morning of November 17th, I received a phone call from a friend telling me that Rusty had been shot while walking home from the studio after a session. The incident occurred the previous night and would be deemed a random act of violence. A person who shouldn’t have had a gun walked up to Rusty in an alley and fired three shots at point blank range. Rusty, shot up and bleeding, picked himself up and hightailed it home multiple blocks. Once home he called 9-1-1 and collapsed on the floor. The ambulance arrived just in time, and they rushed him to MCV medical center downtown where they stopped the bleeding and stabilized his condition. He survived and was in recovery. Rusty suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and another through his left elbow. The third shot miraculously passed through the book bag he was wearing and missed his body completely.

 Rusty called me on November 19th to let me know he was ok but that our studio sessions would need to postpone. Yeah, Rusty……no shit!

 Rusty is one hell of a trooper and a friend. From time-to-time I’d call him and check on how he was doing. Honestly, making the record was the least of my concerns at after the incident. By December Rusty had started rehabilitation and was in recovery, but still had a long way to go. He reached out and was itching to get us back in the studio to make up for the time we lost. On January 16th of 2022 Rusty and I got back in the studio to work on the record. Rusty, if you’re reading this, I’m grateful you’re alive. I’m grateful for the effort you put into this record. I know it took a lot to get back into the studio. The incident shook us all up. I’m glad you’re still around buddy. For anyone that wants to help out I believe there’s still a go fund me page out there for Rusty.  The dude is still trying to pay off his medical bills from the incident. Help him out.

 Chapter IV

Go west young man

In the spring of 2022, I answered an ad on social media to record in Nashville, Tennessee, at this cool studio called Welcome to 1979 where they still record to two-inch reel-to-reel. They were promoting an incredible deal and I thought it was an opportunity of a lifetime.

 Side bar- Throughout the pandemic, and while I was trying to finish the 2nd album, I was attempting to write new material. However, being at home all the time and not interacting with other people, I found it hard to draw inspiration. I wanted to write but the well felt dry and I was frustrated internally. The artist in me was pushing to start something new when I wasn’t done making the other record. This is something I’m sure every artist experiences at one point or another, but when the muse is calling the best thing you can do is listen and hope you catch what it’s putting down. I was writing, and reading, and writing, and writing some more. During this time, I ended up writing a whole third album. What do you want from me? I was reading a bunch, mostly biographical stuff, and I got on this Waylon Jennings bio kick and the next thing I know I’m writing songs that sounded very 70s country.

 I applied to Welcome to 1979 and was selected. There were a limited number of dates and, if selected, we would have to book the session during the promotional month. The band and I began making plans and rehearsing material in preparation for the sessions. The songs from album #2 were practically finished and I thought it’d be a nice bookend if we were able to drop off the tracks to the engineer in Nashville as we were starting the next venture. The date was set, and we were ready to go.

 Then I got COVID.

This changed everything. The dates would have to be rescheduled or cancelled altogether. Eventually we worked out a deal with 79 to reschedule. Chris Mara and His team were great, and if you aren’t familiar with their work, you should definitely check them out. It’s a great studio especially if you want to record to tape. The studio was built in an old record label building from the 70’s and many things were left untouched. It may be the smell of acetate, the vintage furniture, the walls lined with old reel-to-reel cans, or maybe even the slide you can ride down from the control room on the second floor, but from the moment you walk in you’re transported to another time. The band and I recorded a whole 3rd album in just three days. Same approach- live, in a room together, with a real band, with as few takes as possible and minimal overdubs. Punk rock. As I write now that record is being mastered, and will be released this year as well. The record is titled “Outlaws and Saints”. It’s cool. Very 70’s country.

 Chapter V

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

We started finishing overdubs and I moved the project from The Ward to my friend Bryan Walthall’s home studio Stereo Image Recording to cut some costs and put the final touches on the record. Things were getting more serious with the ‘big-time’ mixing engineer as their career began to take off right in front of me. They were killing it and becoming more and more recognized for their work, and now had multiple awards to show for it.  I found myself talking to their manager/lawyer to formalize our agreement. I was way out of my league. This was very new and honestly a little intimidating. I even had to consult with a lawyer of my own.  What started as a simple email exchange became a back and forth of legal documents with their management. I was totally invested, and believed this person was the right fit for what I was doing. I guess they don’t call it the music business for nothing. I wanted the very best for this record and in my head this engineer was going to make it perfect. What can I say? I’m a great judge of talent. If only I was as Lucky betting on horses or the NFL playoffs. I was honored that this person was willing to work with me.

 A couple weeks go by, and the engineer reaches out directly. There’d been a ton of back and forth between lawyers and management, but nothing was finalized. The engineer offered to get some test mixes done for me, so I sent shipped off some mix-preps and they started mixing. My dreams were coming true. My hard work was paying off and the sky was the limit.

 At this point let me say, and any independent artist will know this, I’ve listened to the rough mixes so many times it makes me sick. This is my least favorite part of the process. Some artists have the luxury of not doing this step. Some artists have whole teams that help make these decisions for them. In my case I was operating as artist and producer and there’s no way to get around this step. During this part of the process, you start hearing shit that isn’t there or you might even start hearing things that are there but that you didn’t realize were there before- A cough, a bad note, a flubbed guitar, your bassist making a comment about someone’s mother. Sometimes it’s a perfect mistake you didn’t plan but is magical. The list goes on and on. It’s a grueling process. It’s taxing on the ears and if you are not careful, you’ll drive yourself insane. You obsess. You get so deep into the weeds you might start to dislike what you’re hearing. You might even convince yourself it’s terrible. You’ll want to throw it all out, quit the project, and walk away from music all together. I’m not joking. You must learn to let it go. If it isn’t correct at this point it never will be. Every artist can be their own worst critic. The key is to not let that voice inside your head get the better of you or else it will stop you from releasing your art/music into the world. If there’s any lesson to learn it’s make sure your shit is in order before moving on to the next step. Lesson learned.

 Ok, so I get the test mixes back and…drum roll.

 Honestly, it took the wind out of me. The tracks just didn’t sound like how I hoped for them to sound. Something felt off, different, or missing. It didn’t have the same excitement it had coming out of the board in the studio. What happened? Was there something wrong with me? What was I hearing?  It felt like the feel, the rawness - the “it” was missing. Maybe it wasn’t there in the first place. W-T-F.

 Let me stop here and say 90% of this was probably my fault, maybe a little of the pandemics fault. It could have been a result of this album being birthed into chaos. To be honest I don’t know, but my gut was telling me something was off. My tracks were a cluster fuck- the result of multiple studios, change-in-hands, multiple engineers, hard drives, different recording software (Protools, Logic, RADAR?), etc. What the fuck is RADAR again? Something was lost in translation.

It just wasn’t what I hoped to hear, and I knew it. My gut knew it.

Chapter VI

Trust Your Gut

At this point I wanted to quit. Trash it all. Pull the plug and start over. Were these songs even good enough? And what does that even mean? Hell, if I know. This was too hard, too expensive, too much work, and a lot of frustration. It was all shit in my head. Most artists suffer from imposter syndrome, a psychological malfunction where you begin to believe that you’re inadequate or incompetent. At this moment I felt like a no-count-poser. I needed advice, so called my friend Rich who played guitar on the Welcome to 79 sessions and, at the time, was member of the Piners. Rich is a producer and mixing engineer and has been in the business for years. I respected his opinion and wanted to get advice on what I should do next. Rich is a confident guy and is well-worn from the industry. He encouraged me to be honest. Not to over think it. It was all just part of the business, and the best thing I could do was follow my instincts.

 That afternoon I got up the nerve to ask the engineer to have a call with me to discuss the test mixes.  We talked and they asked for another swing at it. Few…Thank goodness.

 The next day I get the revision, and…nope. Something was still not quite right. My anxiety hit the roof. It just wasn’t what I wanted. I reached back out and set up another call, but this time I jumped into an awkward exchange of “it’s not you it’s me” and “I just don’t think this is the right fit for this project”. I was embarrassed that it didn’t work out the way I wanted. They were incredibly gracious, a class act, and a real pro about the whole thing. I decided to go another route. I had no idea what that would be. All I knew was right then and there my confidence, my vision, my hopes for this record were shot and I was back to the drawing board.  To be honest, I’m still not sure whether it was the right decision or not. I’m still a huge fan of this their work and I hope one day our paths will cross and we can work together again. 

 I’ll leave you with this: There’s nothing like the feeling in your stomach when you have to “fire” a Grammy-multi- award-winning engineer.

Chapter VII

Closing

To say it’s been a tough couple of years is an understatement. The pandemic brought suffering to so many people and there are many that will never fully recover from its impact. People lost their loved ones, homes, jobs, and businesses. Looking back, those couple of years felt so chaotic for so many reasons. Politics divided us. Hate and racism reared its ugly head. Misinformation and manipulation were everywhere. A global Pandemic, a novel Corona Virus, vaccinations, shortages, an election, fake news, protests, riots, police brutality, George Floyd, Breana Taylor, Black Lives Matter, John Prine, Confederate statues, the Capital insurrection, white supremacists, the right, the left, Uvalde Tx, Indictments, another election. It been a hell of a lot.

I’m not sure what normal is anymore. Kids are still being shot and killed in their schools, and every other day there is a new mass shooting or something else that leaves us all on edge.

As I look back on this time and all that we went through I can’t believe I was able to complete an album. Maybe it’s what kept me going. It kept my mind busy. Gave me something to strive for. In October of 2021 I lost my beloved grandmother Mary “Nanny” Shiflett. She was my everything. It hit me incredibly hard. Nanny was my second mom. She helped raise me, and every good memory I have growing up has her in it. I was broken. I ran off to Utah. Why Utah? I have no idea. But the great spans of open skies and mountain-scapes were healing. The alien red dirt, western plains, and massive rocks formations is exactly what my soul needed. It made me feel really small but at the same time connected to something much bigger. Something ancient.

I visited Moab’s Arches National Park and hiked to Dark Angel, a massive monolith, where I sat on the edge of rock wall looking over the western plains and found a sense of peace. I knew right then and there I had to finish this record, who it would be dedicated to, and I decided to give it a name.

 Chapter VIII

Rebels and Dreamers

This record is titled “Rebels and Dreamers”. It was recorded live, together in a room with my band with few takes; it’s raw, honest, and human. After the passing of my beloved grandmother, I realized that there was a common theme throughout this particular group of songs. Many of the topics and themes covered in this record were the result of my upbringing and came from stories told to me by my grandmother, grandfather, and mother. They are the original rebels and dreamers. My childhood was filled with outlandish stories of life in the country, before-the-war, the depression, of bootleggers, rebels, dancehalls, reunions, the holler, Christmases, and all of the good old days. To a child these stories seemed larger than life. Looking back, it's hard to know if these stories were true or just tall-tells and flat out lies. The one thing I know is that my heart is filled with love when I think about them. My grandparents’ home was always filled with music and laughter, and they taught me everything I know about traditional country music. My mother, on the other hand, taught me about southern rock music and introduce to the likes of Marshall Tucker Band, Skynyrd, ZZ top, and the Allman Brothers. She was a wild child born into the revolution of the 60s, came to age in the 70s, and was the product of an alcoholic household. She ran away from home, road with bikers, got married at 16, danced at studio 54, skied lake Tahoe, and saw ZZ top, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers live in concert.

 I decided to use a photo of my mom on the cover of the album. She’s 12 years old and sitting on her horse named “Stella” in my grandparent’s backyard. Her whole life is ahead of her. I remember running around the same backyard barefoot as a child, playing ball, shooting cans with bb guns, eating grapes out the arbor, and climbing trees. I asked an artist named Brian Dove at Bigfog to add some art and surround the outside of the photo in flourishes of dogwoods and daffodils. I always remember the daffodils in my grandmother’s flower bed in the springtime.

 I hope this album’s songs and stories touch your heart. I hope, in some way, it weaves us all together. We are all rebels and dreamers. I hope you hear the labor and love that went into making this record.

Here’s to the rebels and dreamers.