“In the summer of 2012, between tours supporting End Of Daze, I locked out the world and sat down in my apartment to write a new record – clear view of the New York City sky through iron bars like a promise. Like all compulsive minds, I was waiting to let the muse loose. And so I spent the next week in a sparkling haze, and when I emerged from the frenzy to go back on tour, indeed ten new songs came with. They were bound together, not just by an overall sonic palette and new guitar pedal, but by time, intention, and fervor. Do you hear Suede? Siouxsie? Patti? Madonna? The Cure? Velvet and Paisley Undergrounds? Stone Roses? Cuz I did.

“Still later, in November 2012, I returned to Hollywood to record among the lingering ‘Pet Sounds’ at East West Studios, in pursuit of a bigger, darker, more urgent sound. Sitting in the room with my favorite team of regulars (Richard Gottehrer and Sune Rose Wagner producing, Alonzo Vargas engineering), it was easy to add some flesh to my song skeletons. But, unfortunately, the previous year of touring had reduced my voice to a pale spectre of its former self. I left California with the heavy burden of an unfinished album.

“Truly one of those disguised blessings though – the extra time was a gift. These songs weren’t done at all! So I recorded vocals alone in my bedroom studio, fueled by Rainer Maria Rilke, Anais Nin, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, Sylvia Plath; the punk poet singers Patti Smith and Lou Reed; and finally, an unhealthy obsession with the Surrealists’ manifesto of desire.

“I write this now, many months later, on the up. So much of my life has been defined, aided, and even saved by music. ‘Too True’ is my best attempt at joining the rock’n’roll ranks, of chasing pop into the dark, and I am as ever, humbled that you listen.” – Dee Dee Penny, Dum Dum Girls