Early one morning on tour this winter, somewhere between New York and North Carolina, while Joel was still asleep in the van, I sat alone on the cold tile floor of a rest area near a power outlet, as I did nearly every morning, sending emails. This morning seemed much the same as always, with a lot of emails sent to various people in the music industry, and not a lot of real reason, based on experience, to think I’d get many back, but nonetheless an endless swarm of new ideas and approaches filling my head, and an urgency to just send as many as humanly possible.

That morning, I was to realize over the next several weeks, was actually a bit more notable. One of those emails, as it happened, several more emails, conference calls, and meetings later, transformed itself into something that, because of how long we’d been in relentless, breathless pursuit of it, felt a bit surreal: a recording contract offer up for the taking.

After a final meeting in San Francisco at which we learned that this was the case, Joel and I stopped at a beautiful rocky beach on the drive back to Los Angeles, feeling, to say the least, quite pleased with the thought that all of our efforts over the years on the music project had not been for nothing, that we weren’t crazy to think that we could somehow find a place for ourselves in the chaotic and ultra-competitive climate of the current music business, and that we could look forward to exciting, productive times ahead. That afternoon at the beach we felt a lot different than we have in a long time.

In the end, a few weeks and several more conversations later, after much thought and some important realizations, we came to the difficult decision that the offer wasn’t quite what we were looking for. Overall, it was a roller coaster ride of an experience, and a bit hard to take, honestly. But still encouraging, nonetheless, that we have to be getting close.