Artist Statement

Kiddo took shape during my family’s 15-month RV trek around the United States. Brooke, our two daughters, two dogs, and I left our previous home in Indiana in the summer of 2019 and wound up in Flagstaff, Arizona by the end of 2020. The majority of our time on the road was marked by the restless, uncertain shadow of a global pandemic. 

We had great times. We had awful times. I expected them both. I did NOT expect how much I would think about my childhood — it became an unexpected mental anchor for me as we traveled full-time. I compared every new place to where I was raised. Landscape, accents, food, weather, you name it. I was using my previous experience as reference to make sense of the new.

And I was watching my girls grow up with the United States as their backyard. Different experiences every day. Different states every week. Different regions every month. I found myself wondering how these experiences would shape their personalities, and how my childhood shaped me.

All the while, I was writing and recording music. I did it nearly every night after Brooke and the girls were asleep (thankfully they’re deep sleepers). It didn’t matter where we were — campgrounds, forest land, rest areas, friends’ driveways — I was recording new music.

That’s where Kiddo originates: at the cross section of new and old memories, with a different scenic backdrop each day.

New memories like watching the sunset over a PB&J dinner on Going-To-The-Sun Road, getting bit by fire ants in south Florida, and seeking out any and every swimming hole in Arizona to escape 110 degree days in an RV. Racing through my mind alongside old memories like fishing at sunset and listening to the Cardinal game play from my dad’s car radio, driving country roads through corn fields listening to new music with cross country teammates, and the first spring that Brooke and I dated as high schoolers. 

Each song on Kiddo has layers of stories behind it. And no listener will know the same nostalgia, and that’s OK. I made this record for me and the kiddo that I was. When you listen to it, I hope the songs recall memories from your own childhood. And I hope you spend enough time with the album for it to soundtrack some new memories, too.