Where music and I now stand, after our break-up and make-up

After a painful break-up, music and I are renewing our relationship on a trial basis. 

For 8 years, I performed at least once a month in NYC and all around the East Coast.  At first I loved performing, but the music industry can be a cruel, soul-crushing roller coaster, and it eventually took all the joy out of music for me.  There were a few months after I stopped playing when I didn’t even want to listen to female singer-songwriters, because I felt envious of the successful ones and pity for the struggling ones. 

I didn’t touch my guitar for over a year.  Didn’t sing a note. 

And then one day I wrote some new songs about fragility and disappointment and acceptance and moving on, and I wanted to lay them down. 

So I went to John Clement’s farmhouse studio in Pennsylvania and recorded the songs, with no regard for the music industry or my fans or my future success or failure.  I just made the music I wanted to make, and it felt good. 

When Theresa Previ was designing the (absolutely beautiful) album art, she asked, “Which one’s the hit song?”  And I told her, “There’s probably not one song on this album that would be a commercial ‘hit,’ and I couldn’t care less.” 

“little bones” is not a commercial album.  It won’t be famous.  And I. don’t. give. A. Shit.  Because I am in a place now where the only way I can make music is to forget about everything except that exuberant feeling I get when I’m putting an honest emotion into a sound-poem.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I don’t care about the people listening to the songs.  Quite the contrary.  When Jill Hindle, the album’s first listener, told me she had to pull her car over because one of the  songs on “little bones” made her cry so hard she couldn’t see the road, my soul soared with satisfaction.  I still hope hope hope that my music communicates with people.  I just needed to stop worrying about whether that would happen.

I hope that “little bones” is something people lean on.  I hope it makes you smile or cry.  Let me know if it does.  I won’t tell anyone.  But it’ll make my day.   

-“little bones” is now available on iTunes (search for “Laura Thomas Band”), Spotify, CDBaby (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/laurathomasband), and all the other sites. 

-album release party details: Wednesday, July 17 at 8PM, Rockwood Music Hall in New York City (http://www.rockwoodmusichall.com/).  Come!