Credit, Where Credit is Due

I’m sitting, this monday morning, listening to the mastered tracks, writing the credits for the record.

It’s quite a thing to look at all the names who had a hand in this. Mike, Rosy, Dana, and Corey are obvious. John (our business partner) is a gimme. Gotta give a shout out to Chris, the engineer, and Brian, our mixer. Then there’s Mike, who took pictures, Doug, who mastered, and Kayla, who made Erica’s dress.

Then there’s all this intangible stuff. I should thank Tom, for example. Tom inadvertently set my life in a new direction, even as his life took a new direction. Then there’s Anthony, who taught me how to lose the weight that had plagued me all my adult life, which then led us to think that maybe we could be artists after all.

Then, there’s my parents. My mom looked me in the eye one night at a family rehearsal when I was being particularly sassy and said, “Do you think you’re better than us at creating music?” My career was basically set in stone in that moment. Thanks, mom. Then there’s my dad, who studied science and medicine, but encouraged me to study music. Thanks, dad.

Then there’s Erica’s parents. Erica’s mom used to make her sing trios with her and her sister after dinner. She used to make her practice her mic technique using a curling iron. Erica’s dad, himself a lover of music, always made their musical education a priority.

Then there are our teachers, mentors, rivals, and all the other people who have spoken into our lives, musically. Shall I name them, one by one? Should I thank every person I’ve never met, whose music has inspired and challenged me? Thank you Arcade Fire, and Michael W. Smith, and all points in between.

How do you encapsulate the cumulative experience of 2 musical lives in a couple of paragraphs?