Why Be a Sloth? (Patreon)

Wondering just what exactly this Patreon is supporting? Why join?

Well, me...it's supporting me 😅 But more specifically, the money I make here through the incredible generosity of the Sloths, at all levels, is being used to directly support the production of my music! I am currently working on (finally) getting my Honestly EP produced and ready for release (hopefully) this year 🥳 As it stands, the remainder of the work for this EP should be close to fully funded with just a few more patrons 🥰

Those who are already here are contributing more than half of what is needed to get this album finished, and for that, I am SO grateful ❤️ YOU are helping keep the dream alive, and honestly helping me find the love for these songs again. And that means more to me than I could possibly describe 🙈❤️


The Full Story (nightmare) of The Honestly EP
This EP has been literal years in the making and just about everything that could go wrong, has. For 2 years now, I have been in and out of the studio and back and forth with producers/audio engineers, with only two songs to show for it. So what happened?

I went studio shopping, trying to find someone who I felt comfortable around and could work well with, and after a few weeks of reaching out, touring studios, and meeting producers, I found one! Or so I thought. I first met with Darren back in October of 2021 to discuss producing the Honestly EP (which is still not out) and he seemed very interested and excited about the project, and wanted to get into the studio to record guitars and lay the groundwork right away! Two months later...we finally got started.

I went in to record guitars, and very quickly learned how unpleasant it sounds and how weird it feels to have a click in your ear 😅 By the third or fourth attempt, I finally managed to (mostly) stay on tempo with the click track for the whole song...but it still felt wrong. Not just because I wasn't used to it, but because as it turns out, I have a tendency to write my songs with different a tempo for the verses vs the choruses...my bad 🙈 So instead of figuring out the correct tempo for each song part, Darren asked me to just try it without the click track, and once I did he remarked that it sounded much more natural (probably because it had the tempo changes that were written into the song). He then told me I could sing while I played. As a recording studio virgin, I agreed and started singing... but as anyone who knows anything about the recording process will tell you: that was a huge problem.

Now all my guitar tracks were not only inconsistent in tempo, but much more tragically, had vocals embedded. So they all needed to be re-recorded. I spent literally 6 hours in the studio (including a lunch break), singing and playing my heart out. I lost my voice afterward. And it turns out I shouldn't have even been singing and so didn't actually have anything usable. Sick 👍

That was all done on December 1st, 2021. By mid-February 2022, all I had gotten from Darren were various mixes for "Honestly" that I repeatedly sent back with the exact same feedback: it sounds too happy/motivational and the song is meant to be angry. In fact, when he and I first met, he told me that the line in the chorus of that song "You're nothing but an empty shell, there's nothing underneath" was my "biggest 'fuck you' line". And then he made the music happy... But after telling him repeatedly that it was wrong, he continued to say things like "I like the songs that sound happy, but aren't happy lyrically", to which I responded "so do I, but this is not one of them". And you'd think that, as the artist, my opinion is the only one that really matters, but apparently not to him 🤦‍♀️

So I reached out and let him know that I really wanted to get something out by late March (which is insane given that you're supposed to submit the songs 6 weeks before the release date...I didn't know that), so let's shift gears and focus on my singles (The Girl and Clean Air); can we get it done in time, and when can we get back into the studio? He said yes, and we got back in on March 8th, recorded vocals for The Girl, Clean Air, and Honestly. Thankfully, he finally got the message that Honestly shouldn't sound happy, and he did manage to get both The Girl and Clean Air done by the next day.

For the EP, Darren said as we were leaving the studio (on March 8th) that he'd start working on the rest of the songs right away. By early June, I hadn't heard or received anything from Darren. Nothing at all in nearly two months. So I reached out again and asked about getting back into the studio asap and trying to get the songs finished and ready to upload by the end of July. So we got into the studio on June 12th and finished recording all the vocals for the EP. And during that session, I repeatedly mentioned that the instrumentals weren't what I wanted and described to him what they were lacking/ what was wrong. But when I got the mixes back, nothing had changed. And all my raw, powerful, emotional songs ended up sounding chill and disjointed, with the vocals often getting lost in the mix.

At this point, I was about $8,000 and a full year into trying to get this album out and had basically nothing to show for it; nothing really usable except the raw files. So I asked to meet with Darren in person or via video call to have a proper discussion as to what it was that I was looking for. He completely ignored this request and asked me to put together a new reference playlist. By the time he got back to me, I was in Europe for TwitchCon, but I put together a new playlist of songs that I thought might help him understand what I was looking for.

Two weeks later, I once again hadn't heard anything, so I asked if the playlist had been helpful in providing a better idea as to what I was looking for. And he said "After listening to the references on the playlist and what we’ve done for those songs, I really don’t think I’m the one to get the songs there". So he sent me the raw files, and I went a out trying to get some of my money back. In the end, I got back the final payment (about $1,200) for the songs I had paid the final deposit on.

I did follow-up to discuss maybe hopefully getting some of my money back. He responded by calling me at 9:30pm to essentially berate and insult me, then proceed to tell me that he wasn't trying to burn any bridges and would be happy to work with me on future projects...I'll pass, thanks. But the thing was that most of what he said to insult me and justify what I'd paid him was that I "couldn't" record to a click (he didn't really give me the option; he could have set it up to have the tempo changes, which he told me during this call, but never once mentioned in studio), and there were vocals in the guitar tracks anyway (which again, he asked me to do and didn't tell me it would be a problem), so the money I had paid was for him to learn my songs and rerecord the guitars on his own...which no one asked him to do 🤦‍♀️

And why couldn't he give me what I was looking for after listening to the playlist? Because he's not the producer for Taylor Swift/Adele, so he can't provide that level of production... which again, no one asked him for, but also...why not? But apparently including a few songs by bigger artists meant that I was clearly asking for big pop star production and not just... similar elements... similar vibe... 👍 It's a reference playlist, my dude. Not a "please copy this exactly" playlist.

So by the end of it all, I felt burned by the music industry and hated how my songs were sounding. I completely lost the love for the songs. I genuinely hated to even think about trying again. But FINALLY I am working with someone who understands the vision and am finding the love for the songs again for the first time in two years. I'm finally excited about releasing music again. THANK YOU DAN TREMBLAY 🥰❤️