Every journey begins with a first step, and so did this one.
 

As someone who has played in "cover bands" for nearly 30 years, it has always been a goal of mine to gather together a group of musically inclined friends and create an album of original music.  So that's what I set out to do.  In the fall of 2018 I contacted my brother Steve Jewel, my life long friend Brian Flaherty and my musical "muse" Bob Schrick and said "hey let's write some tunes and do an album."  This was the first time the four of us had played together as a group.  Bob and I shared writing duties and all of us played a part in arranging the material.  Brian provided the practice venue, which coincidentally became the inspiration for the album title.  My wife Michelle and Brian's wife DD provided food, patience, feedback and lots of encouragement.  Steven, a full time musician with his own groups, was kind enough to fly up from San Diego for our sessions.  I think I owe him some frequent flyer miles.  I kept a photo and demo tape record of the process so that it would become more than just an album. I wanted this to be a look inside the process of how a song moves along the arc from a wackey idea to an "ahhh" moment.  We spent nearly a year writing and fine tuning the songs.  Practice sessions had to be fit in around travel, work, summers with the families and the natural rhythm of life.  In the spring we hooked up with our Engineer and Co-Producer Paul Kraushaar.  Paul introduced us to Saul and Elena Rayo and Ancient Waves Studio, our home for the Labor Day weekend recording sessions.  Mixdown and production work took place at Paul Kraushaar's PSR studios during October and November 2019.  The rest as they say...is history.  We are all looking forward to the next chapter for Rusty and the Tin Men.

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 Paul J, Grass Valley CA, December 2019