I humbly offer what will likely be the final Night Genes release. I want to start by saying I am really grateful to share it with you, to share it at all. It’s taken five crazy years to finish, and there were times I thought it would never see light. Despite the long gestation, I still feel deeply connected with these songs. And I hope you do too.

I mostly want to let the music speak for itself, but I do want to say that lyrically, this release captures me as I was then, on the edge of collapse. Sonically, it’s raw and stripped-down, capturing the band exactly as we were at the time. It’s a delight to hear what we were creating then, and that it still resonates with me now.

And, with that, it feels like the right place and time to end Night Genes.

I have changed a lot since I started this project in 2008. At that time, music consumed me completely. It was my medium for connection, for value, for meaning, for vitality, for okayness, for pretty much everything. It was my way out of a life that felt numb. It was my antidote to rejection. I started playing music when a group of friends turned into enemies when I was 12 years old. I spent the next 20 plus years trying to show them they made a mistake.

My dream was not to be rich and famous. I just wanted to stop working at jobs that didn’t fit and to be able to be in a small touring band doing what I loved more than anything; playing and writing music. I moved to San Francisco in part to pursue this dream. There were lots of highs, and I did find my value–I was able to connect with more people–and not just through music.

But along the way, little by little, music started to become a burden. The more serious I got about it, the more stressed I felt, and the less I enjoyed it. I started to become aware that I was living a fantasy that led to feelings of stuckness and a deep unhappiness. Eventually, I hit rock bottom. I was depressed, depleted, lost, stuck, and confused. I had the gut-wrenching realization that the part of me that was miserable was the part of me that wanted to be a musician.

There is a story, a myth, that I heard that captures my experience with music. It says something like: when you come to a river, there is a boat. Use that boat to cross the river. But don’t carry the boat with you on the other side. Music was my boat. And I am now leaving that boat at the river. I am continuing this journey without it because it became a burden. I’m letting that part of me die. That doesn’t mean I won’t keep writing music (I still write songs almost every day), it’s just that I will no longer be doing it in the same way. I now know I am okay. Not all the time, but much more consistently. How did I get here? It’s complicated, but therapy and community have helped immensely.

Listening to these songs, I can feel all of what I just shared boiling up toward the surface. I can hear myself trying to find a way out of the shadows, toward something new. Careful Where You Follow Your Dreams feels like the last breath of the old me trying to escape his shackles. It feels ironic that the medium was part of the cage.

In the end, I never achieved my dream. For a while, that was heartbreaking. I had always thought if I just never gave up, I’d make it. But at what cost? The cost for me was my very life. I chose my life over that dream. I am glad I tried, but there is something else in store for me. It’s a relief. And music was a big part of getting here. It’s with my whole heart that I thank creating and performing music both on my own, and with others. It made my life worth living, until it was time to set it down. And that’s what I’m doing now.

I want to express my gratitude for the many musicians I have been so grateful to play with. Together we made something alive with color, rhythm, and feeling. Especially want to express my gratitude to Dan Baber, Hannah Skelton, David MacFadden, Amy Foote, Russ Lodge, and Streeter Johnson for being part of this for years at various times. I think fondly of the time playing, recording and touring together. It was a gift, truly. Thank you.