Last week, I released my new song “Back For You.” This is my third single of 2021 following “Part Of Me Knows” and “That Day.” All of these tracks are a part of a project I am going to release later this spring called “987.” I wanted to start by saying thank you to all of you who have listened to this music, and for any encouragements you have sent my way saying you’ve enjoyed the song or have shared it with your friends. It may not seem like a big deal to you to let artists know that you enjoy their music, but trust me, it goes a LONG way. I believe that an artists’ biggest asset is their belief in themselves. It’s so hard to do this without believing in yourself. So, thank you for all of the love on the new music, you are helping me to grow.
Last year around this time, I started recording all of the songs that will be on “987.” Preceding this record was my debut full length album “Never A Waste.” With “Never A Waste,” I was trying to challenge the idea of what “Christian” music was. This album had songs about everything on it - faith, loss, regret, failure, breakups, love, missing people. In my opinion, Christian music was so removed from real life (a reflection of American Christianity in general). I was wondering, “why aren’t we being honest?” “why do these songs feel so unrealistic? what are we actually saying?” To me, Christian music is expiring. It’s starting to stink, like leftovers left in the fridge. And people are starting to smell it. American Christian music has a very obvious formula that recycles the same generic Christian rhetoric over the same four chords. If you really pay attention, the formula is painfully obvious - write about some sort of fire or desire, mention heaven coming to earth or a revival, film a room of attractive millennials in a room emoting unrealistically to the song, then if you want extra points in today’s time, make sure minorities are in your video. That’s Christian music right now. But to me, the lyrical content, what we’re actually singing, is so hard to actually connect with real life. I think I believe heaven coming to earth will help us, but how does that actually happen. I don’t know that much, but I’ll bet heaven on earth is not a room full of hot people in hats and Chelsea boots jumping around and lifting their hands. All that to say, with “Never A Waste,” and moving forward, I have always been interested in making art and music that actually named the very real things that we go through as people, Christian or not.
With “987” and the songs contained therein, I only had one rule for myself. No boundaries. I had become increasingly uncomfortable with being a “Christian” artist because I felt that that association limited what I could or couldn’t say or pursue musically. I felt trapped in a thematic and musical cage. The scope and perception of Christian music is so limited and I have always felt like I wanted to say things that were slightly outside the status quo of the genre. So, I think in an unconscious way, making 987 was a way to free and separate myself from that genre. 987 was an experiment and an outlet for me to pursue my true musical interests. The sounds and the songs on this record are a free exploration of ideas, sounds, and perspectives that are true to me, irregardless of whether it fits into the listener’s expectations. So, at the risk of being misunderstood or not received, I set out to be me and make music that I really believed in, and thus we had 987.
I’ve definitely had some inquiries about that these songs are about. I really like the idea of you guys being able to have your own relationships with the songs. That’s why I’ve put up no disclaimers or explanations about what this stuff is about. I think it’s really beautiful actually that a hundred people can listen to a song and have one hundred differing interpretations of it. I think that good art and music is able to even transcend itself, and speak directly to an individuals own personal experience of life, irregardless of the artist’s original intent. That’s really cool to me. But, I thought with “Back For You,” I thought it be fun to share what this song means to me, and the place in my heart that it came out of. It came out of a very special and very specific time in my life where I was figuring out a very specific puzzle, and thus “Back For You” was born. Hope it helps.
Back For You
There is a song that Death Cab For Cutie released on their album “Codes and Keys” called “You Are a Tourist.” In the chorus they sing, “If you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born then it’s time to go.” I feel like this one lyric is the perfect framework for where “Back For You” came from.
Before moving to Atlanta, where I currently live, I lived in Athens, GA. It don’t know whether to call it a town or a city. It’s like a big town or a tiny city. I don’t know. I lived there for the last 9 years of my life. I did my undergrad there at the University of Georgia and after school I stayed and continued to make music as an artist and producer. I was so invested in Athens, deeply involved in the church and the very special music scene there. I had some of my best times and memories there, and many of my best friends Ive met through that very special place. I cut my teeth in Athens, working on my craft as a producer and engineer there for many years, starting as an intern, then becoming an engineer, then a manager of a studio, to owning and operating my own studio, Bloom Sounds. Man, it was such a perfect time for me and what I wanted to do. I had an identity there, I had a place there, I had a community, and I felt like I was in the perfect place at the perfect time. I absolutely loved it.
In 2018, though, I remember having this tiny tiny feeling inside me whenever I’d visit Atlanta or LA or any other big city with a lot going on there. Yes, the feeling started sometime in 2018. I even remember drawing the Atlanta skyline in my journal after visiting my friend there one weekend. I started having all these questions: “is there something bigger for me out there?” “have I experienced all I can experience in Athens?” “am I supposed to stay in Athens?” “How long is the runway here?” Looking back, these questions are so critical to have. They’re terrifying, so they typically live deep in your gut and take years to really come to the surface. But I remember being so enthralled by the energy and the pace of the larger cities, and made me really start to wonder if I had what it took to move up to the next level of my life in all areas - career-wise, craft-wise, relationally. I had a sense that I was getting better as a record producer and artist, but I could no longer tell if that was just because I was a growing fish in a smaller pond or if I really had what it took. The questions continued to grow. “what would I be in a larger pond?”
I think I stayed in Athens one year too long. I believe everything happens for a reason, so I don’t regret that decision, but staying one more year without pursuing the answers I felt deep in my heart provided a real challenge for me. I was rebelling a lot against mostly everything. I felt kind of like a bird trapped in a cage, growing to resent itself and its cage. I think I identified my desire to move on and grow, but in a way resented myself and was embarrassed at myself for not having the courage to pull the trigger. I think, for the first time in my life, was able to understand this feeling of having a chip on my shoulder - often I’d feel simultaneously like a know-it-all and a failure all at the same time. And that is not a good feeling. I felt like I was continuing to grow, but my environments were making it harder for me to flesh all of that growth out. I had hit a ceiling.
Going back to that Death Cab song: I started to feel that exact way, a tourist in the place that made me. I started to feel less and less connected to the places and environments that I once held so dear. It’s this weird feeling of everything changing around you, sort of feeling forgotten or something. It’s hard to describe. It’s funny, there was an opportunity to buy the house that I was renting with my friends Zac and Joe. It was a beautiful old house, where my studio was too. It was prime real-estate in the middle of Athens, and would have really increased in value and would have been an incredible investment. I really saw a future in it - a life in Athens, making records, right in the middle of the city. Everything I need 5-10 minutes away, familiarity and comfort for rest of my life. But I remember having a lunch with my friend Julie, who has a family and a house and all that, and she basically told me “if there is anything in you that wonders what you can do out there, you have to leave. You can always buy a house later.” And that was it. I realized at that lunch that I needed to face the questions inside me. I remember that day so well and am so thankful Julie was there to ask my own question back to me. I would have been very happy taking that path, but I think I would have honestly regretted not taking the harder route. I think I would have always had the question burn inside me, “what if I had left?” I think I would have been hard on myself, believing that I took the easy way out in my life.
And that’s what “Back For You” is really about for me. People have asked me, is it about God? is it about a girl? what’s it about? And, though it’s such a layered answer, I think the song for me is about the feeling of leaving everything you love and know behind so that you can answer the questions you need to answer. It’s about the feeling of going on there to find out what you’re made of, by yourself and for yourself. It’s an ode to Athens, GA - and every single person there who has been my friend or touched my life in any way. It’s a
”thank you fo much, I love you, but I’ve got to go now. Let’s all get together after we went out and found our way.”
We will do anything to avoid change. We spend so much time in situations, environments, relationships, and communities that no longer align with where we really know our life is taking us. I experience this push and pull as this slow, deep undertow of a river, pushing our lives ahead. And it’s pretty relentless. We spend a lot of time swimming against this river’s current, but what would happen if we learned to let go and enjoy the ride down the river? “Back For You” in a sense, captures a moment in my life where I, in my own small way, trusted my gut through my insecurities and my fears, knowing that something less comfortable and less familiar was what I really needed. who or what am I really coming back for? I’m not really sure, but I do know that it will all make sense down the road.
Thank you for reading and for listening, love AB.