Blog: Insomniac, Revisited

I don’t know if I’ve ever publicly stated this, much less done so in a full on blog format, but the release of my song “Insomniac” was a traumatic one for me. If you were around at the time & a follower of mine then you would possibly remember that the song, upon its original release, had to be pulled, remastered, & redistributed. All of this was to do with background drama & poor choices that were made against my better judgment & with promises that the decisions being made would pan out & be for the best. Once again, my intuition was right on that, but that’s not what I’m here to write about today.

Last night, while working on something for my socials, I stumbled upon the series of videos that Evan & I created to promote the release of “Insomniac.” These videos stemmed from an idea that I had which I referred to as “things you do when you can’t sleep.” They featured a single shot of someone one would do when they can’t sleep & then about halfway through the 10-20 second video, the intro to the song would cut in, it would pull up a title card & give the date of release as well as a call to pre-save. I remember that we started with a much larger list of activities but ended up cutting it down to nine for the promotion; exercise, watching TV, taking a bath, playing video games, eating, texting, taking a shower, drinking, & surfing the internet. We shot these little blurb videos over the course of several evenings & filled them to the brim with little easter eggs as well, mostly as call backs or little features of the things that I enjoy. For example, the one where I was surfing the web features me going to my website, this website. It also has a “Country Music Allies” pin in the bottom right of the frame, a group that I partnered with for the release of the song. Additionally, I’m snacking on “Smart Sweets” a brand I was all over at the time & there’s an Assassin’s Creed lanyard dangling by the computer, a gaming franchise I enjoy. We put so much thought & curation into these little promotional videos that I don’t feel like people even gave that much of a passing glance to.

What strikes me as odd about “Insomniac” is that for a lot of you it still remains one of your Top 3 songs of mine, despite the fact that it is one of my lowest streaming. Background meddling & a botched release have a lot to do with that. It’s frequently one of the songs I get asked to play in the live setting most often but for the longest time it was the song that I wanted the least to do with, simply because of how grueling a process it was to get it out & how it essentially became dead in the water upon release. Nothing went right with its launch, all the way down to the album artwork file being corrupted upon hours of completion & immediately requiring a do over. I guess that was foreshadowing.

But the more time passes, the more the content from the “Insomniac” era resurfaces, the more it saddens me all over again that this song that Jared Scott, Evan, & I had so much writing, & Joshua Gleave & I had so much producing, ended up as essentially a lost cause simply because of incompetence by those who I was prodded into trusting for its release. Even when we went back in & tried to salvage the song & re-release it, everything got lumped back together & was immediately null & void again. Unfortunately, I think that this was one of the last releases that I went “all out” on with the promotion & the efforts behind it because the project that I worked so hard on & had so much fair in essentially ended up amounting to nothing. I may as well have just cold dropped the song. I guess that comes with the territory of trying to be an artist though.

There are still embers of hope somewhere inside of me that “Insomniac” will have its day. I’m not sure if or when that will be, but I still hold on to its vindication somewhere in my heart.

I understand that art is meant to be, simply, without expectation, but it’s really hard to watch the things you spent countless hours getting off the ground immediately crash & burn with no immediate chance of redemption or salvation. Countless hours, countless dollars, essentially amounting to nothing, it cuts deep.

For those of you out there who tried tirelessly to salvage this song for me upon its release, I am beyond grateful. For those of you who still stream it, who still have love for this song, I hope to be one of you some day soon, it’s just still a very tender spot of my musical catalog for me.

I will continue to revisit this song which I have exiled from my psyche, in the hopes that someday I rediscover my love for it & I hope to someday be at a place where I feel comfortable & convinced to share the full story around the goings on of it all, but until then, I leave it to you all to give the love that it so desperately deserves.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Release: When He Was Me

I first heard When He Was Me about five years ago now. I believe it was 2018 but it very well could have been 2019. I had a session with Josh Gleave at his studio on music row. When I walked in Josh was wrapping up work on a demo for the song that Shay Mooney had just recently come in to lay down vocals on. He played me the song in whole since I was present & it immediately grabbed ahold of me. It was one of those songs that catches your breath from the first line & doesn’t let go until the final chord strikes. Time went on & I patiently waited for When He Was Me to make an appearance on a Dan + Shay album, but it never did. As soon as the track listing for the duo’s third album came out I & I saw that the song wasn’t among them I immediately texted Josh to find out if he could reach out to Shay to see if I could cut the song myself. Shay gave not only his blessing but also sent over a folder of about six other songs of which I chose two; When He Was Me & Something To Do (we’ll get to her at a later date). Then began the process.

Being an independent artist can make getting a big boy industry song cleared amongst the big boy music industry a bit of a daunting task. After a few months of my former manager not making any headway on securing the rights we parted ways (for a number of reasons outside of the song itself). The task then fell upon Evan & I, but mostly Evan who loves himself some admin work, to get the song cleared. Of which he went through multiple different sources to find the proper avenues to secure the song.

We ended up doing the recording of When He Was Me right before the pandemic hit but I found that the more I sat with the recording, the more I felt it was lacking something, specifically where my vocal performance was concerned, so once we had a dip in quarantine restrictions & covid numbers, I headed back in the studio with Josh & Greg Breal to do a different vocal take, which I much prefer to the one we initially had. We also added a few more sets of BGVs to the song & a bit of vocoder!

After the song was sent off to Jonathan Roye for mix & Mike Monseur for master it sat. For almost three years it sat. Why you may ask? Well this is one of those songs that I wanted to put out right. I wanted all of my ducks in a row & everything to go smoothly, & thus far it has! Additionally, remember how I said I was dealing with big industry things with clearing this song? Well, that was beyond true! Evan counted last night that it took 78 different emails to different people to get this song cleared. That’s not counting the direct messages, phone calls, intermediary texts to find contacts, etc. This song took this long to put out in part because of my status as an independent artist.

But alas, we’re here now! The song has been released! It is out in the world for you all to make your own & to listen to & share amongst your friends & family & in all honesty, I feel good about it. For once I’ve got a release going smoothly with more things to follow. For once I’m not at a place where I’m sick of the song by the time it’s been released & that feels good. I’m at peace with it & am ready to see what comes of it. I’ve released the art to you all to do with as you see fit. I’ve done my part in its execution & now it’s time to let it fly!

When He Was Me was written by Shay Mooney & Benjy Davis. It was produced by Josh Gleave & vocal produced by Greg Breal with drums by Lester Estelle Jr., bass/keys/programing by Josh Gleave, & acoustic/steel/electric/dobro by Devin Malone. It was released through Distrokid & promoted by Trend PR. A special thanks to all who helped this song along the way: Noreen, Patricia, Kendall, Ashley, Alison, Amanda, Ben, & Hunter. A special thanks to Evan for all of his incredible hard work & beautiful content creation & a shoutout to The Fox Bar & Cocktail Club for allowing us to use their venue for photos!

I’ll place a link to the song below though you’re more than welcome to search it on whatever your favorite streaming site may be!

Much Love As Always,

-C

Blog: Just Another Late Night

On a chilly November Wednesday evening, back in 2017, gathered around my kitchen table with Evan Michael & Kate Cosentino was where “Just Another Late Night” was originally conceptualized. The title had been a note in my phone for even longer & for whatever reason the timing was right for this midweek write. Back in 2017 Kate, Evan, Kimi Most, & I used to do weekly Wednesday night writes. This song came out of one of those sessions as well as Kimi’s “Happy Birthday To Me," a song called “Dumb Drunk Self” that I still desperately hope Kate cuts, & innumerable other songs that we each have sitting on the shelf waiting for the timing to be right on their potential tracking. Given that she is not credited on this song, Kimi was obviously not a part of this particular week’s write for whatever reason so it became a collaboration between the three of us.

I remember writing down the title in my notes as almost exactly how it ended up “I need someone that will love me right, not just another late night.” To me the song sparks a memory from the early 2010s but for whatever reason I still hadn't found that “someone who would love me right.” Naturally it had been a while since any of the events in the memory had taken place but I still felt deeply attached to the idea & the song kind of poured out of us in the session.

From there the song became a staple in my set, I’ve been playing it in live settings ever since that night in 2017. I played it so much & so often that people who came to a lot of my sets began to know the words & I would get asked over & over when I planned to release it but for whatever reason it just kept getting pushed down the “to record” list. Cue 2020/2021.

I had just put out the acoustic mix of “Obliterated” & had gone in to record another song that is as of yet, still to be released. We wrapped the song & I felt I needed to put out something with a little more movement, enter “Just Another Late Night.” Going back in studio with Josh Gleave, we set out to finally bringing “Just Another Late Night” to life.

I wanted “Just Another Late Night” to feel almost like two separate songs because in the song, much like in life, we have moments of waining clarity. The verses act as the “quiet before the storm” that is each encounter the chorus brings. The verses are much more reserved allowing more space for the clock & hours to tick by in reflection. The chorus is cacophonous, it’s rambunctious & wild. It’s unhinged & without hesitation. Then we come to the bridge. The bridge to me is the “eye of the hurricane” it’s nothing but vocal & percussion that features a begging ultimatum from the narrator of the story. I wanted the song to reflect life, to have those moments of clarity that we all reflect on after & before the fact before we ultimately buy into the thing that’s destroying us one more time.

We’re now a week int the release of this song that we poured so much love & life into & I’m floored by the response I’ve had for it! Many blogs, playlists, websites, have all reached out asking to feature it. So many people have shared & as of this second we are sitting around 25,000 streams on Spotify!

I’d like to thank any & all of you who were a part of this song:

Evan Michael & Kate Cosentino for helping to write it!

Joshua Gleave for producing & dealing with my crazy artist ideas in addition to bass, keys, synth, & program instruments!

Lester Estelle Jr. for lending his mad drum skills!

Cole Phillips for crushing the guitar!

Jonathan Roye for mixing it so perfectly!

Mike Monseur for mastering!

&

OneRPM for distribution!

If you haven’t streamed or purchased “Just Another Late Night” I’ll drop the link to it here:

As always, thank you for reading! Thank you for allowing me to do the art that I love & be the artist I am!

I’d also love to know your thoughts on the song & how it relates to you personally, so feel free to leave a comment below!

Much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Why You Should Be Pre-Saving Releases From Independent Artists

Hiya!

I’m sure if many of you are like myself you often find yourself faced with an artist friend or an artist you follow prompting you to pre-save their upcoming release. And if you’re also like myself the first thing to usually go through your mind is “why would I do that? I don’t even know if the song is good or not yet.” Well, I’m here to tell you today, that doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, I’m also going to tell you why!

Back in the day, when people were still buying tracks/eps/albums/etc, (which if you’re still doing that, you’re a saint in the eyes of artists & writers) you could often preorder said piece of musical art & that made sense, because it’s like preordering a book or a game or whatever else you may be excited for! It gave the artist distributed the piece a leg up, especially where charts & sales are concerned.

How does this translate to our modern era of streaming?

Well, much like preorders, pre-saves give us as independent artists a leg up in an industry where the charts & playlists often favor the labels & the signed artists. It gives us a behinds the scenes way of saying “this is how many people are already interested in this song on day one, imagine how many more will be when you add it to your super exclusive editorial playlist!” And that counts EVEN IF YOU NEVER LISTEN TO THE SONG!!!

That’s right, you don’t even have to stream the song, the pre-save is enough!

I mean, by all means listen to the song because that’s somebody’s hard work they poured time, love, money, & effort into! It deserves to be heard! You never know, it may end up being your cup of tea too!

I have been hearing more & more independent artists vamping up massive pre-save campaigns just to get the attention of the editorial playlisters on the major music streaming platforms, & you know what, it’s working! Slowly but surely these artists are getting thrown onto major playlists in part because their songs deserve to be there, but a lot of the time because it got flagged as a song of interest simply from the number of pre-saves.

All of this is meant to say help independent artists out & pre-save their releases! It takes like 30 seconds to do & you could be a major boost to their career! In addition to, you know, being a good friend/supporter for those of us out here doing the thing all by our lonesome!

SPEAKING OF….

I have a new single that comes out on June 24th called “Just Another Late Night!” You’d be doing me a humongous favor by going in & pre-saving it to your streaming platform of choice or even all of them you’re a part of if you feel like going above & beyond! I’m going to post the pre-save link below, again, please take thirty seconds more out of the couple minutes you’ve set aside to give this a read & pre-save my next single! It’s a bop, I promise!