My fifth studio album, and my second solo album, In Measured Hundredweight, is significant to me for many reasons. For one, it’s the first time that I’ve ever produced my own album. Normally I work with other talented producers on albums. With No More Kings, Neil DeGraide produced all three studio albums. Then my first solo album, Diamondhead, was produced by the amazing Bill Zappia. Bill went on to produce a second project with me, a jazz-flavored 80s cover album called Musings on Mars.
The second reason that this album is significant to me, is that it caused me to have a minor epiphany about how I approach music. Most albums act as a collection of songs, grouped together as a snapshot of that time period in an artist’s life. For me, I approach songs more like art pieces. Like paintings. Once I realized that, I then realized that further, I approach albums as art shows. It’s as if the listener is invited to a gallery where the 10 or so songs that make up the album are hung on the walls. Just as the art show would have some sort of unifying theme, so do my albums.
The artwork started out as a bunch of apocalyptic imagery: plague masks, skulls, gas masks, that kind of thing. But then I started adding some flourishes. Bits of ornate floral designs and weird stuff that seemed to be antithetical. I wanted to hint at the cyclical nature of it all. Out of death comes new life.
Check out the behind the scenes for each song, by clicking the images above, or by clicking the song titles below.
01. Burned by the Sun.
02. Out of Here.
03. Too Far Gone
04. The Wreckage