Fall 2023 Senior Project at The College of Saint Rose

This project was done during the fall semester of 2022. It consists of eight original songs and one cover. My intent with this album was to showcase some of my songs from the last four years using a variety of recording methods. Some songs were recorded as one takes in the studio with my live band, others were recorded part-by-part using overdubs and comping. I recorded, mixed, and mastered the album myself, working between my home and The College of Saint Rose studios.

“Red Heels” is a up-tempo rock song I wrote in late 2019. My goal was to start a song based off descriptive items (red heels, ivory dress). My vibe inspiration was the theme song from the Spectacular Spider-Man. While they are totally different songs, it led to the swingy rock.

The first semester of college is weird. It’s a new place with new people. A fresh start. Getting over self-conscious thoughts and insults from high school and your hometown is part of growing up. I was a lot more confident, but maybe a little too much, and I definitely still made mistakes along the way. “Rebound Man” is about my first college crush which ended up being an awkward and tumultuous fling. With baggage from both our pasts, the relationship didn’t last long. I wrote this song the week I called things off and while I definitely don’t feel the same as I did then, I still remember this as one of my favorite originals from over the years.

I was on a five mile run in the woods, I had to pee, ergo song. Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest things. And it can be funny.

I wrote this song in 2020 and continued to make changes for about a year. When I finally went into production, I wanted a lot of ambient noise and pads.

“Standstill” is a song off my first EP “Young Lad.” I wrote and released the song in high school, but the feel and ending of the song changed as time went on. I recorded the vocals and guitar in studio as a one take. It was intended to be an acoustic version but I wanted a little more to fill in the space. I added an electric guitar part in post and had a colleague, Skyler Stabin, do an impromptu Rhodes part.

I love this song and wrote it during the two years I completed college through Zoom. While this isn’t the final product I plan on releasing (I feel that the song has a lot of potential but should be cleaned up), I’ve been working to get it to a place I’m proud of.

I found an orange jacket at a Goodwill while I was interning in Nashville. I was driving home after and thought of the line “grab my orange jacket cause it goes well with blue” and '“Bleach” was born. The bridge ties back to the time I died my hair white, so I figured “Dan Phantom” and “Bleach” would be perfect songs for an EP together down the line.

I wrote, recorded, and released this song during the pandemic under another artist name (L.O.R.). The entirety of the original song was recorded at home and with the use of samples. This time around, I wanted to do it as a full band in the studio. I used stems from the original track as a skeleton for the new one and re-recorded all other tracks for the final product.

My live band covered this song at one of our live shows and it was a hit. Before we stripped the studio on a recording day, we decided to do a one-take for fun. The final vocals were done in post because of the extreme bleed from the live session. This was one of the faster mixes of the project since it was only three instruments and my vocals.