“It's the same mixing console that The Beatles recorded Abbey Road on.” Our far-too-artsy-to-be-living-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-New-Mexico mixing engineer, Mike, says in the middle of mixing my band's very first EP when we were 16 years old. Bright-eyed versions of our younger selves looked upon the old dusty board with a tinge of quiet admiration (and I admit – with some disbelief about how a piece of the iconic studio ended up in east-of-nowhere, New Mexico).

That will be us some day - we would assuredly say to ourselves, and would let our minds wander about, dreaming of the day when our band would land a major record deal and would play to sold out stadiums...

Of course, that dream never came to fruition for my old rock band. But who could blame us in 1998? In the surplus economic climate of the 90's, it seemed the only way that a band would ever really be successful was to get millions of dollars of funding and become an overnight success. We certainly had no lack of appreciation for our fans, but our eyes were always fixed on landing that deal that would change our lives forever.

Strangely, what I do remember about being 16 years old was that money was scarce. Sure – I had a part time job working at TCBY (you just remembered White Chocolate Mousse, didn't you?), but as far as the money it cost 4 high schoolers in a band to buy studio time and to manufacture CD's, we were way out of our league. How were we going to get that money?

Jeff (the guitarist in the band), had come to school the next day and told us about an idea he had – that we would ask people to financially support the recording and the manufacture of our CD, and they would get a personal thank you from us inside the credits of the album jacket. I was a little hesitant about the idea at the time, but it actually worked really well for us in a high school of 2000 people – we were probably one of only 5 bands even at the school, but hey, it still worked, and we got our first record! We were immensely proud of our work, and our supporters were excited to hear the record and see their names listed as people who had actually made it possible.

Does this scenario sound at all familiar? If you've been following my campaign on Indiegogo.com over the last couple of weeks, it should have striking similarities. The idea is essentially the same – you support what you want to hear. I never would have dreamed that we would be back to a concept that is so simple, that 4 high schoolers thought to do it 15 years ago, but what better way for fans and artists to connect, and see something great develop out of it?

As I write this – my campaign has 16 days left to reach the goal, and I couldn't be more thankful for the people who have already contributed. You've given me your faith and your trust that I can create something great given the resources, and I thank you dearly! This record will be a far cry from what I was writing with my rock band 15 years ago, but it is 4 years of songwriting, recording, life, love, and loss all put down into one record called History...and I have you all to thank for it.

If you haven't yet, please click the link below to go to my indiegogo campaign page and see how you can help, and go get some frozen yogurt from somewhere to celebrate since the TCBY made you think of it earlier.

Love and appreciate you guys,

-TRMJ