Third studio album from Orange County based self proclaimed "prunge" artist Kevin Nichols



"Depression, anxiety, and suicide is something that runs in my family and I am very much afflicted by. Everything in my life is cyclical, so these feelings wax and wane frequently. I find myself frozen indoors, immersed in the bottomless pit of my subconscious, feeling trapped on my couch or bed. I want to get up but I don’t want to get up. I want to eat but I don’t want to eat. I want to do something, anything, but motivation is non-existent. My indecisiveness is so mentally and physically paralyzing, I seek a way to end it. I find my easiest option to be sleep, for I am no longer conscious. When I cannot sleep, thoughts of wanting an end escalate and spiral into an anxiety attack; I feel as I may actually die. Panic increasing, I beg not to die, though twenty minutes prior I wanted to kill myself. "I Don't Wanna Die but I Wanna Die"- this is where the title of the album comes from, this exhausting cycle. I tell you this tender and personal account not to evoke empathy or pity but simply to let you all in and perhaps allow someone to not feel alone when facing their own battles.

My music is my therapy and each song on this album acts as a journal entry. If you run into me or hangout with me, you’ll see me smile and laugh and enjoy life. All my negative thoughts and feelings are encased within the confines of my songs so they no longer inhabit me. They live in the songs so that I can live free.

Just as life can become repetitious, I decided to experiment with repetition and motifs for this album, in addition to maintaining movement within a song's structure without shooting to a bridge or key change.This resulted in stacked layers of different sounds and instruments I haven’t used on previous recordings. The simple addition of a MIDI keyboard opened doors to different sounds, many of which you feel more than hear. I also busted out my old alto sax from my days in marching band and got that in the mix.

When it came down to the production stage, I already had an idea of what I wanted for this album- to retain a raw, unprocessed, and dynamic sound. When listening to classical music, so much of a piece's depth and impact comes from it’s dynamic ebb and flow. I aimed to take a page out of that book and kept my compression to a minimum. Besides the drum overheads and vocals, I used no compression until the mastering process so that every snare hit, guitar strum, accent of a shaker, etc, were all gently unique in timbre, attack, and presence within the mix. I wanted it to feel like you were standing in the room listening to these instruments being played by imperfect humans. To me, the human element of imperfection has always been an important quality. I’d never dream of autotune, quantizing or any of that crap. If I go a little out of time or am pitchy on a vocal take, I want it to stay there to maintain the human element within the music. I can’t speak for everyone, but when I hear a flawed part in a song, I connect a bit more. That’s not to say I don’t like spot on takes of people shredding as well.

It is what it is."