Monthly Archives: December 2019

In retrospect, 2019 has been one of the hardest working years of my life. A culmination of 20 years of home recordings, learning as I went, and the buildout of a makeshift home studio. My goals were ambitious, my timelines were unreasonable, and my understanding of just about everything involved was nonexistent. In other words, it was a tremendous learning experience.

I’m in the final stretch before my first independent studio album release, and it feels good AF. It felt like I’ve spent forever paralyzed by the thought of mixing and mastering my recorded demos. Having that obstacle cleared has returned healthy blood flow to the heart of my songwriting. When I began exploring mixing and mastering it was all-consuming, so there was no time for writing if I was going to stick to the schedule and make the deadline.

Music production IS precision-based work, and it takes a tremendous amount of discipline to do this right. The experience has left me with a tremendous appreciation for the value that mixing and mastering engineers bring to the equation because I could not have succeeded alone. Along with appreciation comes a thirst to understand the technical nuances of an ever-expanding universe of audio hardware and software. I feel like I set myself up with a decade of learning ahead.

All of this kind of reminds me of when I began learning how to code to browsers, then later to mobile devices when the iPhone ushered in a new era of technology. The first dot-com boom, the second, and the mobile revolution. Fuck it’s good to be alive in this day and age. It also reminds me of my pops. Buzz ODonnell.

I appreciate my father’s influence and work ethic, his ability to troubleshoot farm machinery to get it running and operational for the start of whatever season we found ourselves in. He was an engineer, he was a student of people and life, a hacker, he spent all of his spare time reading, troubleshooting, and problem-solving. Regardless of my pursuits in higher education, I consider myself self-taught. University only gets you so far. It’s true I have 2 degrees, a Bachelors and Masters in Fine Arts, neither of which address the day in and day out tasks I need to take care of in music, or in maintaining my day gig. They do however speak volumes to who I am as a human being and what path I have chosen to pursue.

Art is about finding your own voice and path in the world. It’s about being told you are wrong by critics and having a mindset hell-bent on proving those in doubt of your abilities wrong. As 2019 was about willing an album to existence, 2020 will be about working to breathe life back into all of the songs already written while clearing the way to any new ideas that come down the pike. It’s going to be a fucking good year people, and I’m glad to be sharing this news with you on such a fine Sunday afternoon which commences the close of the year.

This is going to sound funny, but it took me time to work up the courage to ask my friend to create designs for my upcoming album. The first, most obvious question is why wouldn’t I do it my self? I am after all a trained seasoned visual artist, I’ll start there.

Music is raw emotion, instinct, revelation, & mystery. The musicians I’ve studied are larger than life, titans, heroes straight out of a greek epic. Their music, along with our ancestry lives & breathes in our DNA & speaks to us if we have the balls to listen. When I hear people say that a soul lives in each of us, I’m not sure they truly believe it.  Music is the very definition of a soul.  Instinct and immortality are real, & becoming a hero or legend is a conscious choice down a disciplined path to a longterm vision or goal.  Real men and women, flesh and blood.  Any time a human tries to master something he/she enters the arena. When you enter this arena, you need to be prepared.  Only a fool would take on such an endeavor without a support system.  Alone.

Enter Charles Fetherolf, my secret weapon.  I’ve worked, collaborated, exhibited, shared studios with countless artists over the years.  Entrusting my vision to an artist of his caliber was an obvious choice, he was the first person that came to mind who could bring ideas to the table that were out of my reach.  My goals were ambitious and beyond my own skillset.  Creating a visual language to explore & extend the music, performance, & poetry of the Ram stage name us so open-ended it can go anywhere.  Knowing that is a beautiful thing.  To be productive in the journey, an artist that has a track record of executing above & beyond expectations has to be involved. I mean, what the F is the Ram anyway? I actually don’t know. Just saying I’m a bad-ass singer-songwriter isn’t enough. Sometimes names are just given to us and they stick, and on the lighter side, I know I’ve been called a hell of a lot worse. I knew Charlie could build the foundation of a visual language while I focused on all the other moving parts around me.

This is where my first point comes in. Knowing when to ask for help can be tough. I love being a DIY artist, but running everything; digital design, content, social media, film, & recording is a massive undertaking. Asking for help, and budgeting for professionals to add their magic to the mix is as important as the act of writing songs because at the end of the day it’s about maintaining the creative process, performing, getting the songs out there to the people, and moving on. Everything needs to fall in line to keep the machine going and firing on all cylinders.

Had I taken on the responsibility of making all of my tour posters, album art, and the visual language I would not have been able to push the needle as forward as I have in 2020. Today, I am surrounded by capable musicians that I want to collaborate with. Charlie’s visuals have my imagination reeling and are the beginnings of some concept poems and full albums. I’m swimming in inspiration.