We’ve just returned from a quick tour of Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina with stops at Old Settler’s Music Festival and MerleFest. The past couple of weeks have included such events as eating “street tacos” at a backyard party (and debating what makes a taco a “street taco” vs a regular taco), shenanigans on a zipline (someone got stuck in the middle, but we won’t name names), Bowman judging a chili cookoff in Texas (we’re glad he was hanging with his parents that afternoon and NOT jumping into the van with us), a hot tub hang that may have run a little late and caused our hosts to institute a curfew (sorry, Margaret!), a couple of incredible events with some PledgeMusic supporters (a lunchtime acoustic concert in Virginia and a barbecue dinner in North Carolina), and lots of good music.
It was great to get back out on the road, but our minds were never too far from this new album that we’re finalizing. We had an opportunity to listen to the mixes of the songs over the past couple of weeks, to live with them a bit and figure out what tweaks might need to be made. Next week, we’ll meet back up with our producer Ryan and work through our punchlist. And once that’s done … it’s on to mastering!
At the same time, we’re finalizing artwork and lining up release details. It’s pretty amazing how much work remains to be done – it doesn’t end once you leave the studio! We want to make sure we’re giving this all of the attention it deserves so that we’re setting it up for as much success as possible.
On that note – you may have noticed that our release date has shifted. When we started this process, we planned to release in early summer. As we dug in, a few things happened that caused us to realize that in order to do this right, we needed to wait until early fall. That will allow us the proper amount of time to set up all of the marketing a distribution channels so that we can get press coverage, radio airplay, the album in stores at the right time, etc. It’s really hard to know that we’re almost done but that we still have a few months to go until we send this off into the world – but it’s the right thing to do. You’ll still get it earlier than the general public, we promise! But you will need to hang on just a few more months. We anticipate an October release at this point and will be finalizing the exact release date in the next couple of weeks. Thank you for bearing with us … we really do believe it will be worth the wait!