Recording the new album in The Ballroom and Ballroom West

(Photos by Steven Cohen.)

I’m working away in Los Angeles, finishing my new album. I started it about a year ago in Minneapolis, and every time I’ve had a chance I’ve been writing new songs and recording them. This has been a busy year of co-writing, I’ve done lots and lots of recording for other people’s records, but somehow I’ve managed to put together eighteen or twenty new tracks of my own.

Last time around, with “Free Life,” I had gathered together a big group of cronies from the Minneapolis and LA scenes and recorded the songs mostly live, then added and subtracted things from the tracks on and off for a couple of years with Rick Rubin.

I love the sound of “Free Life,” and my first thought upon starting the new jam was, “I want the new album to sound the same as the one before!” But when I looked around me at the beginning of this album, things had changed. The freelance musician scene in the Twin Cities had nearly dried up. Suddenly, most of my favorite Minneapolis musicians were very busy with 12-hour-a-day advertising jobs. Most of them now had little children to feed and take care of. I couldn’t really envision asking them to take two or three weeks off their work or childcare to jam with me for low pay.

So I decided to do this record “Stevie-Wonder-style” – play all the instruments myself, record it mostly myself, turn it into a lonely odyssey into my own thoughts and ideas. I thought maybe I’d try for the same sound as “Free Life,” but I’d get there in a totally different way. I’d been listening a lot to Paul McCartney’s first few solo recordings, which are just him all alone in the studio, playing everything, and I’d always loved Elliott Smith’s one-man-band efforts. So I launched in.

Mid-album, my wife Diane and I decided to move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles for awhile. I thought I’d have the chance to finish the record before we moved, but of course once an idea is set in motion it happens on its own pace, and suddenly we were in LA with our two daughters, way before I was done.

Now of course I’m in a city jam packed with great musicians, a city with a music economy that can keep them alive with no day jobs. But ironically, I’m still recording on my own. It’s weird but great. When I’m done, I’m sure I’ll miss it.