The first chill of Autumn

Image: Some random artwork I did for the "200 North" single cover. It might turn into a shirt in the future.

Good morning, Friday in late September. Wow, time flies. I woke this morning to the first real chill of autumn. A strange moon out there this day. Here is a little update on Hadder happenings.

Interview: Well looks like my recent interview with Yiannis Dolas over at www.Rockpages.gr came out this week. I have to say Yiannis did a great job. It was really great talking with him. We chatted for about an hour or so one summer night over a zoom call. La to Greece. A discussion about heavy metal music yes, but I would say it was more about life and the art of living. A conversation about grief, hope, loss, passions and choices. I did my best to tell the story of beyond the breakers as honestly as I could. Lots of little things need to happen over long periods of time to complete a record. During that time life doesn’t stop for you… oh no, it barrels along and you have to do your best to not be swept away in the current. I had some moments during this record when I was swept away and that’s part of it too. A few times I awoke on a new beach and had to gather wood so I didn’t freeze and a few times I lost things along the way… I also found some things that washed up on the shore just when I needed them. Well, if you have the time and want to learn a little about the record or want to read about how a dream of a man named Mr Evermore changed my life or how and why a thing called Diamonds Hadder arrived on this earth. Feel free to read the interview over at Rock Pages. It’s a start.

LITR Music Video: So all the filming is done for the new music video but as I suspected October is coming quick. I’m generally well into my first pilgrimage of the year in early October and so I decided to set a release date for the video on All Hallows night. Halloween night is my deadline. That should give me plenty of time to complete the final edits which are pretty extensive. As I was creating this video small ideas started turning into big ideas and so the endeavor has grown a bit larger. There will now be a little sequence before the video which was something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Sometimes ideas linger in me as I’m unable to complete them all. The intro should be a nice surprise and it’s very meaningful to me and to the world of heavy metal here in the states. You’ll know what I mean when you see it… or hear it I might say. I now see this video bleeding over into the next video “Ballad of the Dead Rabbit” which I aim to film this autumn and complete for the end of the year. That’s all a tall task for me but I’ll be striving to complete all that. With the 2 video’s and the record complete, it will free me up for other things around the start of next year. These videos are as important to me as the record. I feel that’s needed to be said. When you make a record, it’s a lot of work… words and rhymes and syllables and poetry and techniques and style and music and felling and emotions all thrown together like an ocean… rising and falling from still to stormy. Each song is a swell. There’s a harmony to a record, a delicate dance. I worked on that a while and at some point, I completed it. At least enough to close that first book. But… it doesn’t end there. I’ve only touched the surface with words and music… now it’s a visual journey I’m on. Its much more than just a video to me. It’s an extension of “Beyond the Breakers”. How dare I release a lyric video or some 2 week mix of generic video clips just so I can feed the hungry content machine monster. You know what, that thing fucking eats whatever you throw at it and its always there to consume. This week, next week… it doesn’t even care what it eats. Shame on it really… and shame on any artist who gets pressured into selling their integrity to timelines and content eating monsters. I suppose there’s a place for it and maybe I just never really fit into it. I’m a visual nerd geek. What can I say, I care about what I’m creating and time doesn’t always want to play nice with me. I’m always fighting time because I care so much. Any who.. the video is going great, I finished scoring some of the opening sequence and another week or so of midnight slo motion post production clips should get me into some final editing around the time I’m packing for my first trip with Ezra this autumn. My first pilgrimage to white mountain in early October should break up the editing workload, which can be a blessing really as it will give me some perspective on that what I’ve done to date while I’m traveling. I generally return from these trips with an overwhelming amount of ideas and I'm sure the same will happen again this year. Lots of little things you hear on the breakers record perhaps came during these travels. Sometimes even a phrase or word movement is enough to shift the tide of a song and these pilgrimages prove fruitful and invaluable in that regard. I’m hoping they do the same for this video. Another reason why I think it’s best sometimes not to rush into things… perspective sometimes needs just a little time to set in. At least it does for me.

Well that’s it for today. The new chill in the air today is like old heroin for me. I sense the woods and leaves and the hillside above BOK and Ezra is grumbling like a crazy fool with a loving grin on her face.

May your days and nights be filled with dreams of magic and wonder, and your heart filled with grace and gratitude. Enjoy your footsteps today, and watch out for all those noisy twigs.

Farewell.

-j

LITR Music Video Update: Sun to Moon

Image: A still taken from some 120fps video footage from my recent "Long is the Road" guitar shoot on white mountain.

Good morning, a short update today. I’ve returned from white mountain with all the guitar footage needed to finish off the “Long is the Road” music video. I’ve also returned with all my fingers and toes. No Milligoth encounters and the Witch was happy to see me so early in the year. She was busy catching northern sierra tree frogs when I came upon her. I asked her for some wind and she brought a little stormy sky for the first sunset shoot. I think it was about 50mph winds as you’ll see in the video when it’s done. All in all it was 3 days of shooting, sun to moon… literally. One wind storm and a few late evening bats encounters and here I am back in BOK. So what does it take you ask. 2 Guitars, one RS3 tracking Gimble, tripods, gopro and guitar mounts, Canon R5, Ipad pro with raveneye Wifi monitoring system, amp, costumes, props, scripts and iphone playpack with 75% and 85% timestreched guitar and drum tracks.. I know I’m missing a few things but, point being, with so many little details to remember in such a remote location the shoots went off without a hitch. Other than me only bringing one guitar strap and forgetting I didn’t have the same quick lock mounts of each guitar. One full day was dedicated to a little intro feature I’m putting together for the video. Something special that will connect the 2 videos when hey are both completed. Something that has to do with me growing up in range of the great 94 WHJY heavy metal radio tower in New England. I hope to release the first video for “Long is the Road” in a few weeks. Now that all the first video footage is recorded and shoots wrapped up, I really am just finishing post on guitars and starting the final edits. The front feature will need a little scoring and dialog tracking that I hope to complete this weekend or the next. During these next weeks I be editing and packing for my first real pilgrimage with Ezra, where this year I plan I filming all the sequences needed for “the balled of the dead rabbit” during my travels through the canyons of white mountain, on route to the great tree. It should be a wonderful year of bringing my breakers record to life. Closing all this work out should allow me to focus on touring and writing a new record next year. That seems to be the plan as I see it. Throw in a vinyl release, some new merch and maybe a few cargo vans or a used touring bus and I suppose you can start to paint the picture of where the mad captain of this fateful Hadder ship is heading. Well that’s it for today, just wanted to give a little update. Ezra says hello. A little side note, I hear the interview I did with Yiannis Dolas for www.rockpages .com will be dropping soon. I’ll let you know when it’s out. Stay the course friends.

Farewell

-j

Season of the Witch

Image: Some video from some of the "Long is the Road" post production footage.

Good morning, it’s the start of my first moon. The lunar anniversary of my time on earth. Let me catch you up on Hadder things.

Last we left off I was tending to my computers as they were crunching Data for the new “Long is the Road” music video. Not much has changed but I’m close now to starting the final editing for the video. Here is an update:

Merch: I added a new shirt this week. It’s a variation of the Black Sleeve jersey. I think that’s it for that 1st design. I have my mind on some new designs that will slowly leak out over the coming months, including a rendition of the actual album cover. Just need some time to sit with it. If you happen to buy something, please email me an image of you wearing it if you want, I would love to use those images for a video in the future.

Music Video: So far so good. Just about done with all the post processing. I’ll soon begin working on the real edits and video timeline, however, I do have one shoot left. I’ll be leaving the safety of the city this weekend off to white mountain to film the final guitar sequences. It s a bit of a trek. I’ve been packing a few days for what I have planned. I don’t want to give it away as I think it will be a nice surprise for the video. The way I see it, this video will be forever or at least until the web is deactivated by robots, and so one final shoot to cross the T’s and dot the I’s so to say, shouldn’t hurt. I made the mistake of telling Ezra earlier in the week that I was thinking about going to white mountain this weekend to film and she’s been huffing and puffing and drooling ever since… “grumble grumble” She knows what time of year it is… she can smell autumn too. For those who don’t know, me and Ezra generally make some end of the year trips each year… I call them pilgrimages.. to see the witch on white mountain and to leave some things as an offering. We reflect on the year and reconnect with the spirits up there… the guardians of the doolimytes. Later in the year I do plan on filming the ballad of the dead rabbit music video out there if I can get ahead of the snowfall, but for now… a little early trip to film guitars for the LITR video seems logical. I’ve been planning it all week. I tried to assemble a band last minute for a video shoot as option 2, but LA schedules are hard to plan on short notice and so once again… I’ll do what I can with what I have in my control. From what I’ve seen so far from some quick edits of the LITR video, this footage should be just enough to give the video that last bit of contrast it needs as a whole. I’ve also been dreaming up this little beginning scripted sequence for the video and I needed some mountains to complete the vision of it and bring it to life. Considering my past trips to this place during the making of the record, I felt it was important that it now find a little spot in the video forever. I should also mention that Ezra thinks the milligoths are running… she’s been eating tower food for months and I know she’s hungry for some real food… little does she know the milligoths don’t come down from the highlands until the first snowfall. I don’t have the heart to tell her… so I just keep egging her on… “milligoths… mmmmm” ha, It’s the simple things bring a smile to my face. Her time will come soon enough, after we close out this first video.

Physical release: For those who have asked. Yes, there will be a physical release of “Beyond the Breakers” hopefully by the end of the year. I can only do so much and right now all energy is on the 1st music video as it’s needed for the first round of press. There are a few new ways this could happen, and I’ll be sorting out the details of those in the coming weeks as I start final edits for the LITR music video. I will say that when I first dropped the record I wasn’t planning on much, a soft and quiet digital release as I huddle down in LA and shot the 1st music video, a press campaign, a radio campaign… I was prepared for the long haul. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve become quite accustomed to the slow pace of life on the music road. I don’t mind the grind; I actually plan for it. However, some new opportunities have come about that could speed up the process and help get the record into new territories where hopefully it can find new listeners. It’s just a matter of time now.

“Time is a ladder

up to the shine

every step we take

leads to another why,

and hope is the only thing

that keeps us alive

while we reach for the gold

Long is the Road”

I suppose those words were written for a reason. Because the meaning of them is like the blood in my veins. Much like most of the other lyrics on the “Beyond the Breakers” record, there’s no secrets here… I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve.

“A real truth is hard to hide, hard to un-tell our youthful lies,

but come the very bell beyond her silver line… the fairy tale she never dies.” -j

Last thing. If for some reason I get eaten by rouge Milligoths this weekend, please enjoy my record for years to come. It was an honest attempt and made with good intentions. I wish you the best on your own journeys. I’ll tell the witch you said hello. Farewell

-j

“Come girl… grumble grumble”