so we can move forward

I'm not one for looking back too far in the past. Our memories can deceive us into believing things were much better or worse than they actually were. They can make us dwell on situations that we'll never get to re-live, decisions we never get to change. I tell anyone who asks: I don't regret anything. Ever. No matter what happened, it's a lesson to be learned. Our past is in most cases simply where we've been, and the beauty of it is - if we're smart about what we take from it - we never have to go back to who we were or what we did. There are certain opportunities though that allow us to expand upon and build on our past, because it deserves to be a part of our present and our future.  Maybe its two people that finally find their way back to each other after learning more about themselves. Maybe its a passion that we lost in the shuffle of our work or study, and when we re-discover that passion, it lights our lives up again. Maybe its a song that you believe in, polish and re-release, and 6 years after the original version first drops, it receives over 20,000 more streams than it did before (Monster just did that, btw).

This project, Rain, the first 6 songs I ever recorded in Los Angeles, is one of those things from my past that deserves a place in the present. The year leading up to its original release in 2015 was the most difficult of my life. At this point, you probably know that I moved to this city with no friends and no idea how to make real music. It took months of research and long nights sitting at a tiny desk in a studio apartment in North Hollywood for me to even begin to understand what it was going to take to make something of myself in this business - in this life. I was in way over my head. I'll be honest, after about 6 months, my anxiety was so bad that my parents wanted me to move home. I didn't have a job or any clue where to start to get this music off the ground. All of the people who believed in me were at least 500 miles away. I cried real tears recording so many of these songs. My microphone was the only light I had, and I spent hours writing, recording and mixing, even still just beginning to learn some of the most basic techniques of audio engineering and mixing. I wanted to release a project at the end of 2014, but by October of that year, I realized none of it was good enough. I took everything I'd ever released offline and started over, with no real end in sight. I was lost, and music was going to be the only thing that helped me find my way out. 

This project will always be a testament to how far I've come, the people I've met along the way who believed in me, and the proof that I will never stop creating. Many times, the words I write in a song don't unveil their meaning to me until much later. I know there's always purpose to my lyrics, so I let the meaning show itself whenever its ready, even if its months or years later. I find lines in this project to this day that mean more to me than they did three years ago, and that is how I know that these songs aren't just my past. They're the future too. My hope is that you'll be able to listen to this music for the rest of your life, and gain something from it every time - whether you're at the gym, feel like dancing, on a road-trip, or just by yourself smoking a bowl in your room.

It's okay to look back every once in a while. It shows us how far we've come, from the dark places we may have thought we'd never get out through. Sometimes the past can even give us the strength to move forward. You're a lot stronger than you think you are. I'm here to help you believe that.

2015 - 2019 - Forever

CM