The origins of this album really go all the way back to the origins of NEON APOCALYPSE. That album was actually supposed to be called LEMONYMOUS, and in fact, was a direct relation to the song "Lemon Tea" (which was the name of my first demo).

I'm not sure why it was I chose to go back to that title. I had originally abandoned it in the making of NEON APOCALYPSE because it was making the look, feel, and sound, of that album directly reference U2, and WAY too much. So that's why I backed away. However, now that I'm back on it... I don't know.

I feel I can get away with it because I've already made a couple albums and although the obvious influence from U2 is there, so are influences from other bands. Nonetheless, none of these influences appear to make my sound any less my own. So perhaps it makes it "okay" to go back to that title. But still... that doesn't answer why.

To answer why, we have to go back to its origins. I was going to use that title in the beginning because I felt it really played with the contradictions I was trying to get at in NEON APOCALYPSE - that I could act and look and sound like a rock star as much as anyone else, yet no one knew who I was. I was anonymous. But then again, if we were all rock stars, we would all be anonymous.

It played with ideas like that, which, at the time, were very pretentious. My intention is, and always has been, to look like a rock star, to put on the shows, to say some pretty ballsy things, and yet still be me when I come off the stage. You know, carry some of it with me but ultimately be putting on a mask or a costume when I go on stage. I want to pretend to be a rock star, full tilt, simply to cover up the honesty and the over-the-top-of-your-head preachiness of my work, while at the same time pulling it off in a way that those who are listening or watching know that's exactly what I'm doing and let me do it.

So this is where I am now. Still no record contract, which is okay because I'm still developing. I'd rather have a lot under my belt to work with than nothing. The only downside is that I'm going through all these phases and no one knows about them. Worse still is the fact that if I want anyone to know about them, I have to revisit them, and I'm not into copying myself.

Which is ironic - the song "Manpipulation Under Stress" originally appeared as "Goodbye" on my first two demos, and was going to be on NEON APOCALYPSE before I scrapped it. At the time, it was a garage rock tune. "Alive" was written about the same time as "Goodbye", but never found itself a home because I couldn't really play something that in my mind felt too much like "Staring at the Sun". Now, though, it obviously has a completely different feel regardless of the same key and verse chords.

And "My Girl, My Love, Let's Kiss", originally written as a Sinatra tune, was supposed to be on SCARLET DAWN (listen - "Welcome home, to the Scarlet of the Dawn"), and in fact, is the song that gave that album its title.

"Not for Lack of Trying" was actually a piece I did in an electronic music composition course while I was just fiddling around with Cubase back in 1999-2000. I queued up the track for this album and rebuilt it from scratch.

"Autumn" began its life the same way in the same period of time. But as with "Not for Lack of Trying", I recreated it from scratch for this album.

But there are other tunes that found their birth, if not during the album's recording, then certainly just before it.

"Like a Dream" was something I had been working on for about a year, which was part Coldplay, part 80's nostalgia. In the end, it didn't mix right, but the middle 8, in my mind, completely makes up for that. Plus it's just way too good a song to leave off the album. It's also the first time I've made a song with uneven beat/bar sequences, going 7/8 in the first bar, and then 8/8 in the next.

"So Can't I" and "Reverse Psychology" were both born during the recording of the album. In fact, the former was something I was just fiddling around with regarding echo effects on my keyboard, which later turned into a complete beat that I just worked up and put music on top of, and the latter was something I'm just as equally proud of - I set about tracking down drum loops on the web, queued them up, and put music to that as well. However, this time, I recorded each section from the back to the front. What I mean is, I recorded the third section 1st, and the 1st section last.

But LEMONYMOUS seems to fit most musically with NEON APOCALYPSE, while lyrically it fits most with SCARLET DAWN's cyclical references (Night/Day). Here, though, the references are seasonal - "Manipulation"'s August - Fall, "Autumn"'s... autumn, "March of Thieves"'sleet and snow, and so on. Still cyclical but in another way.
Originally, I was going to call this album THE INVENTION OF MUSIC, but backed off as I'm just way too early in my career to be saying stuff like that. I set out to make an album that was part instrumental, part song, and I think it worked out fine.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that this album was supposed to be entirely electronic. In fact, "Hide and Seek", recorded in the fall of 2003, was done right when my band, STARWAYS CONGRESS, had begun. We were playing heavier, grittier music that was more Pumpkins-esqe (ca. early-mid nineties), and I really needed the electronica to balance that all out. In the end though, the band broke up, and it left me free to add guitar and not feel bad about it. (that and I bought a Line 6 Pod XT that really got me fiddling).

There's a lot to say about this album, but I'm not far enough removed from it to be able to say too much about it. I think for now I'm just going to sit back and enjoy.