11/03/2022
Today is a milestone day for me as a music producer. Jessy Vera Music's new album Love As Strong As Death released this week. This is the biggest, highest caliber project that I’ve worked on, and I can honestly say that over the past year I have LITERALLY poured my blood, sweat, and tears into bringing these songs to life for Jessy.
I first met Jessy when I was a dumb 18 year old musician, thinking I could conquer the world with my questionable talents. For years I played on worship teams and in bands with him. He provided a creative outlet for me, and mentored me as a musician and worship leader more than he probably even realizes. (We even played one of the songs on this album at gigs back in 2007-2008 – can you guess which one?)
Fast forward more than a decade. Both of us have been through major life changes, career shifts, big moves, etc., and the musical relationship of mentor-padawan has shifted to artist-producer. We’ve spent countless hours over the past months planning, debating, and shaping these songs into what we feel is their best possible version, and the end result is an accomplishment that I think both of us can be very proud of and that YOU as the listener can really enjoy.
It has truly been an honor to play a role in the creation of Love As Strong As Death. Please download it, stream it, buy it, or whatever you do with music these days. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY please take some time to listen to this album intently – it deserves your attention if only for a little while. I believe it will speak to you, and I believe it will move you.
Cover art by JW Creates
----------------------------
Some fun, behind the scenes trivia about the creation of this album for those few that are willing to read more than I've already written:
Rolled Away subtly features a Didgeridoo, checking off a silly item from every music producer’s bucket list.
Here With You pretty prominently features a very cheap guitar that I believe sounds amazing in the mix (I’m biased though).
Right Where I Should Be has both a ukulele and a banjo in the mix.
Arise took on some of the biggest “last minute” changes of any song on the album including overhauling the lead instrument of the song from a piano to a synth..
Wave After Wave uses a couple of sounds that can only be found in the libraries of Garage Band.
Hope Knows is my personal favorite song on the album.
Hearts Afire, though it was written years before the other song, originally had a vocal hook in it that was nearly identical to a popular Christian song. To avoid any potential issues we had to cut that part, which progressively led to a number of other major changes to the originally planned structure of the song.
Be Still has more individual tracks of vocals and instrumentation within the song than any other song I’ve ever produced - over 160!!!
Love As Strong As Death has the most simple and stripped down arrangement of any song on the album, but required some of the most intricate and in depth editing and mixing.
The Lost And The Found features a wah pedal driven guitar solo, a sound rarely used in today’s music, but fits nicely in this song.
By Your Wounds has my personal favorite lead guitar part on the album in the second pre-chorus. It’s simple, but beautiful.
All Things New uses a uniquely tuned acoustic guitar (DGCF ) combined with a partial capo (making the tuning DADG ). This song also has a massive string ensemble composed of over 45 individual strings instruments combining to play 13 different parts within the arrangement.
