Hey y’all!

I realized I’ve been updating twitter and facebook have been neglecting you, my shweet little website. So, here’s my loving on you – a short and sweet post on how the new (debut) album is progressing.

What started out as an idea in February of last year took off with recording in July and then was yanked to a stop with the birth of my son Grayson. No hard feelings towards him…He couldn’t help his own birthday throwing a wrench in the works! Haha! Albeit it as it may, I love him dearly and wouldn’t trade him back in for anything, even a brand new MacBook Pro (hmmm…lol). Life has just now reached the point of normal that is the “new normal” as my wife and I refer to it. I am still working full time as a barista but am now returning my energies into seeing this marathon through to the end. I’ve booked studio time for the 19th and 26th of this month and hope to wrap up the guitar and vocals. After that I’ll be shipping it down to my friend Simon for final mixing and mastering. My friends at local Lancaster design firm, The Infantree, will be hitting me up with the CD package design at the end of the month and we can hopefully start manufacturing the hard copies at the end of March! We’re in the home stretch!

I’m so excited to have shared this journey with you all through twitter and even personally to an extent. With the way things are shaping up, I think we will reward ourselves for all the hard work with a super sweet release party in April! Sound good to you? Stay tuned through the next three months – I’ll keep you updated on all things album!

Thanks again for listening and supporting me guys! It means the world to me that you love on my music and I.

Yours Ever,

Ben

PS. I’m currently booking shows for February and March and want to come visit you! I would love to travel to your house, local coffeeshop, bar, bookstore, or anything else imaginable! Send me an email at benrothermel@gmail.com to see what we can make happen!

I had coffee with Mat Kearney today.

Seriously, I did!

He came into Prince St. Cafe last week while in town for his show at the Chameleon Club here in Lancaster, PA. I didn’t want to seem like a little fangirl (though there may have been one or two butterflies flying around) so I just walked up and asked him if I could sit down and talk. He was very polite and we had a great discussion about how to choose track listings for albums. If I can take the liberty of paraphrasing his thoughts on the matter they went something like this:

There are those three of four songs that you know have to go on the record. The rest are filled in by songs you feel would work or songs your fans think should go on the record.

There you go! Short, sweet, and to the point! And to top things off, he offered me, my wife, and a fellow coworker free tickets to his show that night! It was a great show and my wife and I agreed that Mat was definitely our favorite act of the night!

So thanks Mat for the conversation and the tickets! Perhaps we’ll meet again, eh?

I’m not usually one for New Year’s resolutions but this year I’ve decided to change (albeit two months into the year). This year I’m going to change myself for the better – or at least die trying. This image to the right is a list of my goals, musical and personal, that I would like to accomplish by the end of this year.

I was summoned into action by a post I read by my friend Joy Ike on her blog, Grassrootsy.com. Read her post here: “Ignore Everybody and Just DO“. I find myself to be someone who struggles with gearing into action so I’m hoping these goals will do just that – activate me. I’ll guess we’ll see, eh?

Try it out too! If you have problems kicking your butt in gear, write some goals and stick ‘em on your fridge door! Give it a go! Hey, why not?

Life is Perfect
Life is perfect. I’m happily married to my best friend, working at my dream job, and driving my dream car – a 1986 5-speed, leather interior, sunroof equipped BMW. And yet, all of these things are broken. My wife and I still fight, I still deal with conflict at work, and my car has too many problems to list! This condition is what I refer to as, “The Beautiful Broken”.

Life is Entropy
Life is entropy. Decay and degeneration, collapse and destruction. And yet, beauty can still be found in the midst of it all. Like a muscle, love must first be broken down before it can be truly built up again.

Life is Hope
Life is hope. You cannot have one without the other. They are inextricably intertwined, each necessary for the survival and growth of the other. Hope is an offshoot of faith which stems from a firm belief in something. For example, I believe in Yahweh – the God of the Hebrews and Christians. My faith is rooted in my belief and from there I take hope.

But Really, Life is Perfect
Life is perfect. And for the times when I feel hurt and pain, I personally resolve to remember The Beautiful Broken.

I have a huge problem with practice and productivity. My human nature is to shy away from all things that require serious buckling down to. This does make music a super hard discipline to keep up in the moments between inspiration and excitement.

If I may be so bold, I think I’d like to throw a short thesis out there. Perhaps spirituality and productivity are somehow intertwined. As a Christian, my view is that God made me in His image. Therefore, since God is a creator, I am originally intended to create or produce. When I do so, I fulfill who I was meant to be.

The short story is that I want to be a rock star without the hard work. It’s time to seriously begin to take the time I have under control and get to it!

Ben

After 960 miles of driving, it’s good to take a break and relax! Amber and I drove from PA down to Memphis this weekend to hunt for apartments and visit old Visible School friends. Visible School has undergone the move from their Lakeland location to Midtown Memphis where they will be this year. Hopefully by next year Visible will be meeting in their new (permanent) building in Downtown Memphis right across from the Redbirds stadium! I hope to go back to Visible to finish my Bachelors and am really excited to attend Visible in the new building!

Lots of fundraising has been happening to make the new building possible for Visible School. I performed today at the Up With Downtown block party fundraiser for Visible along with other acts such as Battle Victorious, Autumn Fox, and Marstin and the Revelators. Holy cow! If you guys have never heard of the Brit rockers Marstin and the Revelators you need to go listen to them! These guys were hard working rockers that even impressed Amber with their fantastic live performance and crowd interaction! Definitely a band to keep your eye on in the future. Definitely.

Our trip to Memphis has been great. We found a few good options for apartments downtown and will continue to be looking for houses/apartments to rent in June/July. It has also been super to meet up with old school friends. I feel very at home in Memphis and Amber and I are really looking forward to moving back here!

I’ll be back in Lancaster by tomorrow night and will be continuing my search for a job. I’ve got one job interview lined up at a local coffee shop and am excited to see if that is where God wants me. My guitar is being fixed by a Lititz native, John Zwally. He’s a very polite and professional luthier who I recommend already. Also on the line of exciting things – I’ll be fixing up my brothers 1986 BMW and driving that soon! I’ll get to look rich! Yeah! (Haha, just kidding!)

See you all soon in Lancaster!

Ben