One thing that is painfully clear to me and everyone who knows me in real life is that I AM MISERABLE. I have been for some time. I’m sick of being broke, mismanaged, overworked, screwed over by the folks who are supposed to be looking out for me…you know, all the hits. Ever since I overcame my paralyzing stage fright, playing shows has been great and I’ve had a wonderful time on tour this Summer with The Gentry but the abnormalities that come along with being a working musician in the digital era without the proper, traditional support of a label are too much for me to just keep absorbing. I can’t be gone all the time like this. I don’t want to spend my life on the road with strangers in bars and hotel rooms. It’s not healthy. I’m homesick for a home that does not exist because I have been too busy to create it for myself, no other reason. I need something real in my life. I can no longer pretend that things are going to suddenly feel better like magic when I know that they are not. These things I’m putting all my energy into obtaining are not making me happy. They are not ever going to because fame and money and attention is not what I want anymore. It’s time that I take control of my own happiness, something I have been dreading and avoiding for years now because of the terrible consequences and pressures attached to doing so. I am finally brave enough and there is just no stopping me. My humanity is in need of repair. These are someone else’s dreams I’m killing myself to fulfill. It is time for me to chase the light to happiness, not acceptance by the masses.

I am going to take some time completely off far away from the business of being myself professionally, then we’ll see where life has led me. These final shows next month with The Gentry in Salem, on August 6th & in Portland on the 20th are going to be the last shows I play for at least a year or two so I hope you can make it. They are going to be very special nights. Please, PLEASE come to the final show at Mississippi Studios on Friday, August 20th and wish me farewell on my new journey.

I don’t know what I am going to be doing from here but I fulfilled my contract with Beat The World (so I know what I’m not going to be doing, which is a very clear start…or finish, as it were). I am Free, an unsigned independent artist once again, not bound to any contracts, people or associations. I find myself in a moment where I can do one of two things; and I gotta choose the peaceful road, you guys. Think I’m gonna go help people for awhile, do something that actually matters—that isn’t so self-serving and based in phony, superficial publicity opportunities. I am leaving the door open for me to change my mind later on so I’m not saying I’m done forever by any means but it honestly does feel that way at the moment. I just finished that new record with Bryan Cecil and have been leaking the demos all week, freeing myself of the rules and regulations that come with being a brand instead of just some stoner dude who makes funny sounding synthpop songs about death and darkness on his keyboard. If another label comes along and picks me up to release it I’d be down to mix it properly and put it out, otherwise it will most likely just stay as-is for the time being. I would consider coming back for the right label opportunity for sure and I love these new songs. I honestly think they are my best work but I’m in no shape to start this process over again with the way things are set up currently so it seems like a perfect time to press pause, catch my breath, regroup.

Before I get into all of that, let me say how wonderful I think each and every one of you are and how much it means to me that you have found a connection with me and my songs and I with you. It’s truly an honor for you to have let me fill the silent spaces in your life with my small, silly thoughts and melodies for the past 10 years of me releasing music. The magnitude of this access into your world is not lost on me. I really hope you believe me when I say that my dissatisfaction with this life I’ve made for myself has absolutely nothing to do with the part you play in it. I have only the warmest feelings for every single one of you. The ironic part is that some of you are just discovering me now and must be thinking “What? 10 years? He’s brand new!” but that’s not actually the case. It’s true that I got signed and have been on TV and in the press a shitload in recent years—I have found most of my success since 2006, I’d say…but that doesn’t make me any less tired from all the fighting years that came before that “lucky break” came along. To those people who helped me fight, who lent their talents to my songs throughout the years, who opened doors for me to walk through, THANK YOU. I could never have gotten this far without you.

The connection I’ve made with all of you new folks and all the people who have stood by me from day 1 has been one of the most magical things I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing my whole life so far and I have no doubt that it will be one of the things I think about during my final moments as I am leaving this Earth. Out of all the drugs I have ever tried (and I have tried them all at least 800 times individually as well as in combination with each other) the rush of not feeling alone in the world anymore is better that any high ever was. It fixed something that was broken in me and is something that will be with me forever. I hold all of your kind words and shared sorrows close to my heart in ways that you will never fully be able to understand. You people actually saved my life. My mother thanks you for that. I thank you for that. I mean it when I say that I love you.

Growing up the gay son of a preacher man in the Church of Christ in York, Nebraska was hard. It did not leave me with very good feelings about myself. To have had this sort of healing experience with all of that gay guilt bullshit as well—where the thing that I was literally tortured for my entire childhood and adolescence suddenly overnight became a selling point, became the thing that set me apart, that got the attention of MTV, that propelled me forward…that shit was fucking amazing. Thank you to Perry Turcotte at MTV (and now, Vevo) who for whatever reason hand-picked my gay wannabe ass from an endless sea of gay wannabe popstars and pushed my face and music into another dimension overnight.

It is a very strange thing to have all of my emotional growing pains documented so extensively from the time that I was 17 up through the present day. There is really no hiding from the truth about who I have been and what it took to get me to be who I am now with the audio blueprints so widely available in such a permanent way, spanning the years of my life I would otherwise most likely be happy to forget. This has been a very good thing for me in many ways, horribly tragic in others.

If I knew then at 17 what I know now at 30 about what it really means to put yourself out there like this, to allow so many people to see you in such a personal way, I might have chosen a stage name or something to protect myself emotionally a bit more. Back in 1998 when I was first recording songs it did not even occur to me that anyone would ever be interested in what I had to say enough to actually listen. It was unfathomable to me, in fact. I was gay, I was a drug addict, I was singing about God and violence and my horrible stolen childhood and said “Fuck” something like a hundred times on that first album. I mean, let’s face it: Everyone back then thought my music was psychotic and they did not know what to do with me. In many ways it still is psychotic; and in many ways they still don’t know what to do with me. I actually love that part. The being a weirdo factor has been so thoroughly satisfying. Yay.

So here’s the thing: I have to stop the stress of it all from continuing to build or I am totally going to snap a twig in the worst way. I need something new. I will still write and record songs because I’m a songwriter and I love music but I am done with this whole mainstream crossover thing, I’m done with the endless work, I’m done with the ratrace. I can’t stand having to pimp myself out and do things I would not otherwise do in order to get ahead. Fuck that. I’m realizing that my priorities have changed somewhere along the way and I’ve missed out on getting some of the things I actually want in this world (family, free time, privacy, normal everyday life, peace of mind, and FOOD mostly) because I’ve been chasing this other dream for so long. I will still keep moving forward with things musically but at a slower, more hobby-like pace…and on my own terms.

Now that I am getting what I wanted and realizing said dreams I am also realizing that i don’t want all of it like I thought I did. “It” is very different than I thought it was going to be. “It” is very isolating and strange. I don’t actually enjoy being looked at all that much. I’m fairly shy when you take the booze and chemical help out of me (which I removed in 2007). I think when I started out on this quest to become whatever I am now it was to fill a void that I no longer have. I can’t keep fighting for this thing that is making me miserable. It’s too much pressure, you guys. I think I might actually hate the mainstream and don’t really wanna be famous at all. I know, I know…roll your eyes. I’m saying that I used to have those intentions and now I don’t. My intentions now are to stop everything dead in their tracks and switch gears…which is just exactly what I am about to do.

Come to these shows in August and watch me commit the most spectacular career suicide this town has ever seen. The big finish is coming right up! To listen to audio from my unreleased record “I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday” click HERE and go to the NEW UNRELEASED DEMOS playlist on the right!

Like I said, I love you. All of you. Always.

xxLL

P.S. (I wrote a song about this whole mess called “Velocity” for the as of now unfinished and unreleased new record. You can listen to and download the MP3 Demo Version for free HERE if you wanna. Also, HERE is another new one called “Things Are Looking Up” for you. This whole bit may as well have a soundtrack, right?)