Album Almost Here!

Recording in what we nicknamed the "Frank Sinatra Room" at East West Studios.
Yes that really was his recording room!!

Over the past 6 months, I have been in and out of the most exciting and intimidating music studio ever. Somehow, my amazing producer got us into East West Studios, home to several names such as The Beach Boys, The Mamas and the Papas, Elton John, Michael Buble', Adele, and everyone else you have ever heard of. I don't know how he did it, but he managed to secure all of our studio time there. It was really, really amazing. I don't think I can really describe how exciting and scary it all was. Exciting, because I would have never imagined recording my first big CD in such a famous place, and scary, because... well... read that last sentence!

I spent several months before that holed up in my apartment rehearsing with the string arranger and the backup singer, and also in a rehearsal space in Hollywood with a rock band. David and I were meeting with musicians at least 4 times a week in order to get us all ready for the big recording moment. We found almost everyone on Craigslist! So basically a group of strangers came together to make our songs sound less like singer-songwriter anthems, and more like radio ready hit songs. I have to say, I was so impressed and amazed by their talent that I often felt intimidated around them.

We managed to record and mix everything in a few months time, and after that it was a whole other adventure. The album has to have a cover, so we prepared for my first photo shoot. To say I was scared is an understatement. I don't know what happens when someone sticks a camera in front of me, but for some reason my face tenses up and I look awful. So I treated the photo shoot like a performance and I practiced. Yes that's right. I practiced. You don't know how dorky I feel admitting that, but it was great advice given to me by my best model friend, Rebecca Winters. I set up a camera on a tri-pod in my apartment and worked on relaxing my face, specifically my jaw.

A fun shot by Kevin Scanlon

The shoot ended up being a total blast once I relaxed. We got some good photos that we chose for the back and inside booklet. The cover photo came as a surprise, when my friend Olga asked me to come over for a shoot at her home. I will wait for the release date to show you what she came up with, but I will tell you we were both so excited when it happened. It was at the very end of the day. She had taken some pretty fun photos like this one:

Photo by Olga Roth

The actual cover is so very different from the examples above, but I wanted to give you a taste of what I have been working on. We will be ready to release it very soon, and in the meantime, I need to crawl out of the dinosaur world and figure out how to get a YouTube channel going. You can expect some videos very soon! I'm excited!!!!!!