Happy sweet 16 to the song and video that single-handedly tanked my major label debut!

Somebody at EMI Records / Caroline Music (or maybe it was John McCain’s daughter, who was on my team at the time lol) decided that Bottom Your Way To The Top was what the mainstream was ready for in 2009, so we led with that.

Reader: Bottom Your Way To The Top was not what the mainstream was ready for.

Anyway, I’m proud that I took this level of f-slur swing way back then, and that this video aired on MTV, VH1, Logo TV and a bunch of other spots. It was controversial at the time, had one hell of a journey getting past the TV censors, and def was a career killer — but we been dancing on her grave ever since! All’s well that ends well. ❤️

Here’s To Us was released 4 years ago today on Kill Rock Stars.

A lot of people in my camp tried to get me to cut this song from the end of New Money, then even more of them tried to talk me out of releasing it as one of the album’s singles.

I didn’t listen.