I had “consequences of my honesty” sitting in my notes app for about three or four months before it ever got written. Any time that I felt anything that I thought pertained to the topic I would drop it into the note & close it out until the next time I felt inspired by it. It wasn’t until Evan & I went to a write with Chase Coy that the song ended up flowing out & boy, did it flow out.
We had tried a few separate ideas with Chase but I think that none of us were really feeling & we actually got to the point where we were preparing to pack it up & call it for the day having not really written anything. I remember Evan had gone to the bathroom & Chase pulling up a random track that he’d been working on & something just clicked. I literally had packed up my bag & just happened to scroll by the idea for “consequences” & we were off to the races.
Majority of the first verse was just spewed from what I had written in my notes & I actually think it was almost written in its entirety by the time Evan returned to the room. We talked as we went along about how the idea had come to be & about how I felt around the content we were putting to page. The answer of “swept under the rug” came up which is where we ended up with our lovely chorus. Verse two was a bit of a talk through as we pieced together association. Aside from there being consequences for my honesty, what else did it feel like there had been consequences for? Which is where we landed on clarity. From there the song really built itself; the refrain sat in naturally & within 30 minutes to an hour we had finished the entirety of the song…which I then proceeded to sit on for almost five years.
I remember saying in a TikTok that I made a week or two ago that I felt like COMH (Consequences Of My Honesty) was a bit of a party trick that I would pull out from time to time. That it was this song that I had deep flowing emotions around, that was an ultimate expression of how I felt at the time, that I could never put out. I would bring it out when people were asking me to show them songs I’d written & I did so often so that I could get people to take me seriously as a writer & an artist. Not just one more CIS/Hetero White Guy who had nothing new to say in the country music space. I also felt like putting the song out would be a betrayal to my family, even though, in truth they were who had made me feel the way I did at the time that the song was written.
Now, I’m not here to throw anyone under the bus. I am not here to shame anyone or make myself seem holier than thou in anyway. I want to preface this before we go forward & talk about the story behind the song & its meaning & be completely transparent, open, & honest. I want to acknowledge the struggle, as there was one for a long while, but I also want to acknowledge the growth, because I am immensely grateful for the growth & effort that my parents put in to changing from where we were in June of 2019 to now. I applaud them for their willingness to listen & to have a myriad of hard conversations over the many years that led us here.
In March of 2019 I came out to my parents. I left them each handwritten notes explaining my (bi)sexuality, my taken relationship status to someone of the same gender, & how it was something that has been a part of me all of my life. I was visiting them in Kansas, passing through on my way back to Nashville with my former manager who I was helping move cross country from LA. Having grown up with ADHD & the cognitive processing that goes with that, I knew my parents would be reactionary. I also knew anything I said would fall on deaf ears at a certain point. I also knew myself & knew if I didn’t write down what I wanted to say that I would mess it up, become reactionary, become emotional, & breakdown. So I left them the notes in the morning on their pillows & made our way back to Nashville.
It was a painstakingly anxiety filled day, waiting for their response which I didn’t end up getting until probably 8 or 9 o’clock that evening in the form of a text. My father called me a coward for not telling them in person, even though I knew the fallout & told me my mother had been throwing up ever since reading the note. Additionally they sent an email to my former manager & chastised her for the “mishandling of my brand.” After that I didn’t hear from them for two to three weeks.
I lay all of this out because I think it has deep relevance to the song itself. I again, am not here to judge or punish anyone publicly for their actions or beliefs, as at the end of the day we are all humans who have deep ingrained belief systems that really don’t like it when someone chucks a rock at their hornets nest.
When I finally heard from them it was like nothing had happened. Like everything I’d said, the weeks I’d gone through in silence & in pain, amounted to nothing. It was all just swept under the rug. In psychology we call this “dishonest harmony” & it is something that affects older generations at an alarming rate. It is the notion that it is better to have harmony at any cost, even if it is entirely fabricated or glosses over a conflict. This song was written in that time period where I felt the weight of the dishonest harmony as well as was receiving the consequences of my honesty & clarity.
Again, many hard conversations & years later & we are all at a place that is lightyears beyond any improvement that I could have predicted.
In Feb/March of this year I started working on new music. Initially it was with my typical producer, Joshua Gleave. We were working on a song called “Woebegone.” Josh, who is on the road with Sam Hunt, found himself greatly disillusioned with producing & quit all together sending me a long list of recs whom I listened through & seriously contemplated. It was then that I remembered an old band mate of mine, Jess Grommet, had reached out asking me if I needed any demos done as he was now full time in the production space. I reached out not for a demo, but to see if he was full on producing as I knew he & I had similar taste in music. He sent me over a sample of some of the artists that he’d done projects for & I was blown away!
Jess & I met one rainy afternoon at Frothy Monkey in The Nations. We sat & conversed for almost two hours, catching up on life, music, etc etc. At the point where music was brought up I pitched him a few ideas that I felt I’d be cool working on. He knowingly asked if there was anything that I had written that I felt strongly about & COMH was brought up. I explained the song & the premise & told him frankly that I was nervous to cut the song as I knew it would require yet another hard conversation with my parents, but we agreed that it would be the song we would do & set a date to meet up again at his studio.
I kid you not when I tell you I waited until the night before our session to have that conversation with my parents. When I did, I told them exactly what the song pertained to, when it was written, why it was written, & why I felt it was important to put out, even if I knew that it would make them uncomfortable or that they simply would not like what I had to say. They were surprisingly cool with it.
Jess & I started tracking & over the span of 3-4 sessions had the song entirely pieced together, also adding in drums from Alec Parrish. We pulled inspiration from everywhere: The 1975, Taylor Swift, Brothers Osborne, Usher, & even Avatar: The Last Airbender. In addition to all of my precious releases! After we had it to a place that felt good we did two in person mix sessions & sent it off to Sterling Sound to be mastered by Adam Grover. The song was distributed by TooLost with PR by Trend PR & photo assets by Evan, & I am beyond proud of it!
Even leading up to the two or so days after the song came out I was anxious about its release. It was an incredibly vulnerable part of me that I had just shoved out into the world for feedback on. Additionally, my parents hadn’t heard the song, at their request, until after it had come out to the public. They apparently really like it. If I’m being honest, I’m over the moon with how COMH turned out. I think it has turned over a new leaf for me & allowed the walls that surrounded my creativity to come cascading down. For so long I was so afraid to say the wrong thing, to hurt someone close to me even though it was how I felt, & putting this out into the world has given me the permission to be authentic & open 100% in my music & writing. Even if the song is a “flop” I am beyond grateful for all that it has shown me & the freedom it has given me! I’m naturally also grateful to all of you out there who are streaming it & sharing it! It means the world!
Consequences Of My Honesty is available anywhere you listen to music! The acoustic version, that I self produced, will be out in just two weeks & you can pre-save it below! If you’re reading this after the 19th of July 2024 it’s already out & you can just stream it too!!!!
I am so beyond grateful for your continued support & for the love you’ve shown me & this song!!!
As always, much love to you all,
-C
