In early 2010 I decided to re-record Paul McCartney’s Ram all by myself in my bedroom.

The process took exactly one month: April, to be precise. I spent around 8-12 hours every single day recording every single instrument. Joan Hiller kindly supplied the Linda McCartney backing vocals and did an amazing job with the cover art. The record was mixed by Beau Raymond and mastered by Tony Lash. 

Amazingly, my little experiment caught the ear of a couple record labels, who astonished me by asking if I’d be willing to release the record with them. In May 2011, The Ram Project was released in the US by Jackpot and in Europe by City Slang.

To celebrate the release, I enlisted the talents of an amazing Portland band called Musée Mécanique, with whom I performed the record in its entirety in Portland, Seattle, and Pendleton. 

The Ram Project was meant to be a simple exercise in learning how to finish something I’d started, an effort to improve my skills at home recording, an attempt to better myself as a musician and singer, and finally a celebration of one of my favorite records. It ended up becoming something that profoundly affected my life in ways I could have never predicted.