How it started:
I started to play music when I was in my teenage years. I learned how to play the guitar and learned the basics to playing the piano later in life. I joined the marines in 2004-2008 to which I took a break from doing anything musically. I got busy working my full time jobs and never really played music at all. I recently got back into music around 2022 and started writing music and coming up with my album this year. I wanted to make a balanced album full of fun, emotional and real life experiences.
The origin story of this music project:
My inspiration came from the love of music. I grew up playing the acoustic guitar, that wasn't hard at all, but playing the electric guitar and piano, I had to spend about a year fine tuning my dynamics and building up my practice time to get at a level I felt comfortable playing at. I started contemplating writing and playing songs this year to which was also so new to me. I built up a music studio in a spare room, learned how to produce, mix and master music. It's been a challenge and lots of frustration to learn how to work with a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), plugins, and how to go through the process to a mastered, finished song. It's been so rewarding to challenge myself and feel proud of myself for never giving up and seeing this release from start to finish.
As far as the inspiration for songs, this album and my overall goal to my music, I wanted to make fun songs, but other songs that were more emotional that people could connect with. I empathize with anyone and everyone (Including my experiences in life). I have made other songs about stories I would hear about on the news to try and walk a step in their shoes for a moment. "My Sweet Child" is about a parent that has lost their child. The inspiration came from the news when I heard about Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray (That song is dedicated to not exclusively those two individuals, but that was my inspiration), realizing that I have two boys myself, I'm grateful and count my blessings nothing tragic has happened to them. Another song is "Not This Time". This song is about individuals in a bad situation or relationship that feel empty inside and can't find an escape. With those two examples, I've never lost my child or been in a bad situation such as what I described, but I feel like there is an absence of music / storytelling about those sensitive topics. I tried to balance out the album by mixing 5 songs of each genre. 5 Acoustic Guitar based songs, 5 Electric Guitar based songs, 5 Piano based songs with lyrics, and 5 Classical / Symphony / Piano based songs. My goal in each song was to be over 5 minutes to fully elaborate the lyrics, expand the music in the song, and fully immerse the listener in each song that they listen to. My goal was to give the listener my best, well thought out execution of lyrics, music and dynamics of each song hopefully giving the listener exactly what the listener is asking from each song they listen to.
This project started about 2 years ago with building up my instruments, 3 guitars, a piano, all the plug ins etc. I started building the rough drafts around July 2024 and started final drafts around September of 2024. I released my album December 9th 2024 with a Christmas release that I put together in one day (It was either rush it or wait till next year). The recording process was easy with building the arrangements. I have no issues arranging and building out what sounds need to be done at a point of a song, but mixing and mastering was new to me and had to constantly take one step forward always taking 3 steps back making slight adjustments to get the desired outcomes. I knew at the beginning or origin of this project, I wanted to do this solo, with no one as I have a hard time trusting anyone in my life so I did this project from start to finish with just myself. In time however, I would like to add individuals with more experience to my projects and build out a band eventually in time.
My goal with me playing music and releasing music is to have fun when you play one of my fun songs, or if you need to reflect on one of my emotional type songs, that those songs give you comfort as well. My goal is to be real, raw, human, tell a story, and on top of that, I don't want to ever publish or release an album from a multi-million dollar studio to where my music sounds perfect, crisp, clean and absolute… (I am not knocking those releases, just not my personality), I want my music to sound raw, emotional, rugged, and personal. I know I am an independent artist, solo artist and this is my first release to where it's not going to sound perfect, but in time I hope to push myself and keep challenging myself perfecting my craft. I am proud and happy with the music I have put out there.
- Joel