I've rewritten this some seven times already. I started writing this in June of 2003. It's February of 2004 right now. I can't get it right. I had so much stuff to write to you, but my whole take on things keeps flipping around every week. I'm afraid of this sounding like some sort of apology for the content of this album and its sister, Hypotenuse. I should shut up. I should tell you how it came to this. What happened was this:
When I was 15, I helped start this band with three best friends. It was, and has always been, my favorite band of any band I've ever heard. I mean, I’d hear bands that were doing amazing things and I would go, "Oh, man. What those guys are doing is the coolest thing I've ever heard, and it's nothing at all like my favorite band [the one I was in]. Maybe we should reconsider our direction." And I'd go to rehearsal with every intention of jacking the beautiful music I had just heard... but when it came out the other end of our collective creative process, it just sounded like us. Do I sound immodest? I think it came out wrong. Maybe this is a better way to put it: we stole so much of other people's music that it didn't sound too much like any of them. I'm not even sure that's true, but that's what listeners of the band were prone to say. Personally, I thought we were a dead give-away for Starship.
But forget all that. Whether we were original or not is irrelevant. Music aside, the one thing we did accomplish was producing "unmarketable" music that never bowed or even nodded to anyone's will but our own (we must give inspirational credit to the billions of bands making their compromises sound so unappealing). So is it presumptuous to say we were a martyr band? Is that just me trying to fit a fruitless existence into the mold of utilitarianism that my brain imposes on everything? I think somewhere in the last few years the band stopped fitting that mold for me. So these albums had to be recorded. What do they do for me?
1) Most importantly, they emptied me. I've healed wounds with these records that have been open for too long. I'm lyrically content for the first time in 10 years. In fact, I am so tapped now that I've done this that if I open my mouth, what emerges is redundant and no more profound than the first time 5000 other artists said it. I think a good artist is one who can recognize that and just shut up until they are full again, so that is what I'll do.
2) They have helped me find friends outside the band again. I began enlisting the help of musicians I had shared stages with and admired since the beginning of my "career." And the recording process became a vehicle for me to open up to them (read: "empty some of my problems on them") and reveal the not-so-barbaric Gavin they had never met (but he'd show up shortly thereafter to bark orders and demand excessive retakes of the simplest parts). We didn't always get to have a "moment" per se, but it did give me an excuse to travel a little and nurture relationships that had been fairly neglected during the band's reign of terror. And it helped me as a musician to determine the players' strengths, figure out how they could enhance the sound I wanted to make, and then wield them to suit my evil purposes.
3) They will (hopefully) prove my career choice wasn't a pipe dream. I think years after non-band friends stopped vocally questioning my judgment (probably stopped thinking about it all together) I was still perceiving their cloud of doubt to be just beyond earshot. It's quite possible that that cloud of doubt never existed in the first place. As my publicly unproductive lifestyle loitered into an annual theme, my anticipated "coming out" party expanded, in order to compensate for said stagnancy. So then I had to release two albums at the same time: one for my anger, one for my sorrow (both for my lame-ness). If I considered myself unproductive for the last five years, perhaps two albums would be a more acceptable excuse. Did I have enough inspiration for two albums? Or, conversely, was I emotionally distraught enough to need two albums? You will be the judge of that. The whole ordeal seems thoroughly depressing to me, but happiness does peek it's fat face around the corners a few times on both albums, and for that I have my closest friends to thank.
4) This album provides a platform for me to push a political agenda on you. I've focused that agenda on just music industry and music consumption reform. Of all the things wrong in the United States alone, should that really be my priority? It's the one that I think I can most affect. I don't think anything is accomplished when one makes vague, wide-sweeping statements like "the whole system needs to change!" or "we got to learn to love each other again." So I'm starting with my own compost heap. Having recorded The Great American Bottleneck most recently, I should direct you towards it for a more comprehensive summary of my feelings on the matter as of 2/04.

It's important to note that all these reasons for making the album are of a selfish nature. Notice that nowhere in here do I say "I made these albums to bring joy and inspiration to my dear listeners!" To me that sounds more like a performer than an artist. I think I am both, but on record I am an artist. I think these records will draw a line and you will have to decide which side you stand on - either they will sound so honest and direct that you will feel trusted and close to me, or they will be so one-sided and exclusive that you will feel neglected and annoyed. It would be cool if you feel the former because I need all the friends I can get right now, but I have to be honest and say I don't really care which side you fall on, as long as you've given them a chance.

I always said (though, never technically asked) that being in the band was just a long running equation - a simple “pros vs. cons” kind of list. But in this situation one gives the cons a much longer "line of credit" than the pros. Actually, it's not unlike a "make or break" end-of-the-night poker game. It's you against the entire country (so picture maybe someone like Steven Segal opposite you), you're holding something promising like a straight flush, but you're just about out of family heirlooms to wager. Steven is surely not holding much because he can barely tell the suits apart and for some reason he only has four cards in his hand (and this is five card stud). You're putting on your most confident chest, but can't help but notice that even his suit jacket is made of rubies. You've stayed in so long because you've filled the pot too much to cut your losses.
The equation tipped in 2003 - my hand was called in every aspect of my life - not just all the negatives of American rock & roll, but the ever-building angst in my personal relationships (even those nullified many years ago), my chosen economic lifestyle, my life's direction in general. 2003-2004 was a convergence of all the unlit roads of my life. And so the age of 25 was the darkest I've ever had.
Gavin Castleton 2/24/04