![]() I’ve been in a series of toxic relationships because of my own inabilities, which has been as much of a work in progress as my path to sobriety. That song has a lot more to do with a toxic relationship I was in. Did you feel a sense of catharsis while writing the song because you were putting away the vices in your life while trying to maintain a clear head? Before you put out In Plain Sight, you released the single “Don’t Call Me No More” in July, which has you embracing sobriety and going back to those New Orleans music influences you just talked about. It’s really special so I’m super grateful for that. My friend said that Derek would sound great on it and I didn’t really know that he had the ability to send anything to him, but he liked the track and agreed to put his sonic guitar on it. Derek was introduced to me by a mutual friend we’ve never met in person, but it was during the heat of the pandemic and I had the track ready to go. We can have honest talks about what’s really going on and end up with something less superficial. That’s what made it easy for us to write together by the time I was writing “Can’t Stop The Rain” back in 20, during the end of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, it was one of those things where David is a good friend and I can be honest with him, which I think is a great place to start during a co-writing session. We used to also support David as a backing band when he was doing solo shows so I became friends with him and he was one of the first people I sent my music to when I was starting to make my first album, Changes. He’s been a really amazing supporter and booster of my career I knew him before I started this current project when I was in a band called the Heard and we used to support the Revivalists. What was it like having David Shaw from the Revivalists and Derek Trucks from the Tedeschi Trucks Band involved in the making of the album? As humans, we create things that aren’t there but I guess I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I don’t know what it was but just being in the sanctuary at night, there’s no way for that not to be spooky in this big, open room. There’s particularly one stairwell leading to the choir room where I would practice less frequently where there’s a landing that always gave me some sort of chills and strange feeling. I don’t know if it was good or bad, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. I think part of it was my mind running wild and being anxious about being in such a large space alone, but I also think there was some sort of palpable energy to the place. I moved in during October of 2019 I was on tour a lot for the first couple months I lived there, then the pandemic came and I was there by myself a lot of the time. I ended up there because I worked as an accompanist for church services for about three years and I needed a place to stay, so I asked if I could live in the parsonage, which is usually the pastor’s residence, and they agreed to let me stay. How did you end up in that church and what did you notice about the place that gave the vibe that it was haunted? Did you hear any bumps in the night while you were rehearsing on an organ? Were there strange sounds coming from the attic? In Plain Sight was created over the course of a year while living in a haunted church in Chicago. For example, with Stevie Wonder it’s all over his music so it definitely has a presence. It’s part of western pop, classical music has seeped into so much of it. Most of what I practice now is material from Bach, which is kind of what I do to stay sharp but it’s always had an influence. I was influenced by that early on and I still love that type of music. With classical and opera, do you find them to influence the freewheeling structure you have in your songs? Especially with how you play the piano? That was most of what I was listening to along with a lot of classical music it was a pretty eclectic mix of opera, classical symphonies, and pop from the ’70s. What inspires this approach? Did you grow up on a lot of ’70s music? Your music is very much a cornucopia of ’70s cool with the funk and r&b from that era definitely having a presence along with the singer-songwriter aesthetic from that decade also being apparent. Francis and I spoke about his musical influences, recording in a haunted church, enlisting talented musicians, and hoping to play more shows in the upcoming year.
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