Ah, Life. Aka, More Than This*, this is the sophomore follow-up that never was. In debt from my first album and desperately wanting to put something new out there but attempting to circumvent the expensive studio, mastering, and production process, I took shortcuts, and it killed my Life. It also hurt relationships with my bandmates as I tried to produce a half-baked product, much to their chagrin.
Concurrently, I was going through an enormous time of self-reflection during the production of this album, and it caused me to drop-out of the music scene while I dealt with some personal demons. We all have them. Indeed, as Wesley said to Buttercup in The Princess Bride:
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So true. So I pulled out in order to deal with my pain. After all, I was a young kid still, in my early 20's, and I needed to figure out a lot still. It took some painful self-confrontation in order to do that, and thus commenced a long journey of reconciling with the past. I am inordinately thankful for this process.
But, as the Gaffer says in The Return of the King, "All's well as ends better." These songs weren't in the grave just yet. Life...had life still. The titular track More Than This, along with Regarding Sophia, To Know You, Fly, Everything, Surge, For The King, etc....they were (and still are) fantastic tracks. And thankfully, I was able to revive some of them on both the Legacy and Human CDs, with the help of Max Gaver. They turned out phenomenally.
All in all, this CD goes down as a collection of "Rehearsal Sessions" recordings, because that's what most of them are: unfinished audio visualizations of what could have been. They are a testament to my journey, and I'm proud of them...as well as proud of what many of them eventually became in 2022-2023 as they were resurrected.
Thank you for enjoying them with me!
Sincerely,
Ryan Graves | Seattle Christian Rock Singer
*Sorry - not available for sale - but please stream it at the links below.
