Anything worth doing takes time and care.  That’s what they tell us, anyway.  In the case of the King Mixer debut, I’ve found this old adage to be true.  Over the course of the  past year and a half, this record has taken many turns (ouch!), songs have shape-shifted, lyrics have been trashed and rewritten, great musical guests have stepped in and out, songs have been selected, recorded and dropped, sonic directions rerouted.  All in the name of creating my best work yet.  So in that spirit it makes perfect sense that the record, originally to be titled “Music On The Bones”, would suddenly receive a name change at the final hour.  Literally during the mastering stage.

You have to listen to the wind when making an album.  What you thought you were writing about isn’t always something to get locked into.  By the time you’re ready to go  public, many of the thoughts and circumstances which initially inspired the music have given way to a more modern feeling or tone.  There were strong starts…then sudden stops while making this record.  Then we’d start up the engine again…get it rolling along…and due to  somebody’s schedule change or a momentary  drop in budget…stalled again.  Then the mixing of the record.  Mixing, mixing, always King Mixing with Reuben Baird at Chicago Sound Lab for months at a time, all through last winter. Then I finished mixing several final songs off the record myself, in my home studio.  This took awhile.  I’m not much of a tech guy, I have minimal gear and I mix things more or less on instinct, trial and error, and you know, with my ears.  Meanwhile my album backers were getting antsy.  Fair enough.    Amen.  So as the King Mixer album drew to a necessary conclusion last month, in it’s final stages, I decided to listen to the wind and title the album both what I’ve been saying to people in recent months, what our production team repeatedly stated over the course of the past year, and also what I’ve been feeling and saying to myself for awhile now:  ‘Hang On’.

I’m excited to announce the King Mixer album ‘Hang On’ is currently being replicated for CD and will be available in CD and digital formats in October 2015.  Keep it here for details on a Chicago release show and more!  Almost there…Hang on!

King Mixer