When I took some time off over Christmas in 2023, I had a simple idea.
I was traveling constantly for work and looking forward to eleven quiet days at home. No airports, meetings, or hotel rooms. Just time to myself.
When I decided to take that time off from work, I made myself a challenge.
Write and record an album in eleven days.
Not start one.
Finish one.
Write it. Play it. Record it. Mix it. Done.
It seemed like a fun way to spend a vacation.
Turns out, I was off by about three years.
The Problem with Plans
If you’ve reached your forties or fifties, you already know this story.
Life doesn’t stop because you’ve got a creative idea.
There was work. More travel. Family. Kids. Date nights. Yard work. Holidays. Birthday parties. All the ordinary things that make up a good life, but also have a way of pushing hobbies to tomorrow.
The project never really stopped.
It just slowed down.
Sometimes I’d spend an entire Saturday recording guitars. Other times I’d go three weeks without opening the project at all. A lyric would get finished in an airport. A vocal would happen after everyone else had gone to bed. A guitar solo might wait a month simply because I couldn’t find an uninterrupted hour.
The eleven day challenge quietly became part of everyday life.
It Became Something Else
At some point, I stopped worrying about the deadline.
The project wasn’t about proving I could make an album quickly anymore.
It became something much bigger.
I found myself opening notebooks that hadn’t been touched in twenty years. Songs I’d abandoned suddenly made sense again. New songs appeared beside old ones until I couldn’t remember which ideas were written in 1999 and which had been written last week.
The album slowly became less about where I was and more about everything that had happened since the last Down on Jane record.
Careers.
Kids.
Marriage.
Divorce.
Starting over.
Getting married again.
Growing older.
Learning that creativity doesn’t disappear just because life gets busy.
It just waits.
Old Friends
One of the best parts of making 11 Days had nothing to do with microphones or guitars.
It was reconnecting with people.
I also found my way back to Jeff Weiss.
If you’ve read the story behind The Cliff, you know we spent years not speaking after a falling out during my divorce. Eventually, we reconnected. We both realized life was too short to keep carrying stupid stuff around.
Recording The Cliff together all these years later wasn’t just about finishing a song.
It was about finishing something else.
More Than a Record
When I first sat down over Christmas break, I thought I was making an album.
Looking back, I think I was reconnecting with a part of myself I’d neglected for a long time.
Somewhere between the old notebooks, the late night recording sessions, the unfinished songs, and the friendships that found their way back, I remembered why I started making music in the first place.
Not to become famous.
It wasn’t to chase a record deal.
Not because I thought anyone was waiting for another Down on Jane album.
I did it because I still love making music.
That feeling hadn’t gone anywhere.
It had just been waiting for me to make time for it again.
Twenty Years. Three Years. Eleven Days.
People have asked if 11 Days is a comeback album.
It isn’t.
It’s simply what happens when you finally finish something you started, no matter how long it takes.
Some stories just take longer to tell.
11 Days will be available everywhere on August 18.
