the big closer was an idea i came up with in the late summer of 2018 and i gave it a name about a month ago, in early november of 2018.

this album or idea of the big closer is the symbolization of my current self (specifically my present self as of recording each individual song) destroying the past self that still lived inside of me, obviously prior to recording these songs (specifically the previous idea of myself from about 5 months ago, around the time right after (part2) was released and i was laid up at home after having gone through a benign tumor biopsy in my tibia).

i’m letting go of this part of me because i can, and this is an exercise in accepting mortality on a grander scale for when i’m an old geezer, and because this is a weight off of my shoulders in terms of the still-kicking, previous version of myself i had been carrying around.

during the month i was unable to walk without crutches or a cane, i was confined to the couch or a chair in front of a computer where i recorded high noon, and about 2 weeks right before i had gone into the surgery, i watched a shitty documentary about death and the afterlife, or lack there of. it scared the shit out of me, not that i’d never thought that there may be no afterlife, but because i connected so well with some of the older people in the documentary. i started to think about how limited my time really is, and how i’d only put out one album this year. i remembered that this surgery was only in 2 weeks and there would be anesthesia involved and pain-killing drugs... oh yeah, and a wicked hole in my tibia. and it all snow-balled into this existential freak-out fuzz that i was swallowed by, only 2 weeks before my surgery and then lasted another month.

on top of all of this i was starting my senior year of high school in about 40 days.

it’s funny how when you spaz about having missed out on so many opportunities in the span of the 3 previous years of high school your brain can totally block out the beautiful experiences you’ve had for the sake of letting your bull-shit existential worries get to you.

i’ve been told a lot by my friends that i put out too much music too quickly and i totally agree with them and we joke about it, but even still before recording this album, i felt like i had so much i wanted to say and so little time to do it. like i had already given myself a death date. i never knew it then, but i had given myself a death date.

i killed july 1st - july 31st doug campbell on october 29th when the single “long drives at night” was released. similar in title only to the track “this place at night” from my previous album (part2), i wanted to introduce the next album as a reinvention. to me, (part2) felt like a failure for being a song and dance i’d already done.

suicidal lyrics, blah blah blah, and more rambling about a car crash, but this time, i get to do it for 40+ minutes. not again.

i opened the first and only warning wound on october 10th with the non-album single “blood.”. a 27 minute, 5-song... uh... song, where i forced myself to write in a style i’d never tried before. it was during this process that i realized why i had been so afraid of dying in july. i was afraid i would never change and i would continue to write and record the same meaningless record, maybe with the exception of “i’m on your side.”, for the rest of my music career.

that’s why i put it in quotes, too.

songs from the big closer isn’t a title that speaks.

“songs from the big closer.” is a title that demands to be heard.

it understands that it’s there. it lives and breathes in the room with me as i listen to it because it is a part of me, existing, and still destroying another part of me all at once.

and it’s a celebration of self-realization.

“it doesn’t know if i can miss it or just hate it a little more
it doesn’t taste the way my breath could turn the air into gold
if i needed to.”

i really don’t care and will never care if i had anything amazing to write about as the person i was if i hadn't destroyed the person i was, and neither will the big closer. it doesn’t care, and i don’t really care about it. besides, it’s only an idea that i used to kill a part of myself that i hated and would’ve only hurt me worse and continue to fuel any depression or suicidal ideation inside of me that i was expressing through songs that i hated more than my own condition.

but now i'm rambling, so i'll let the songs speak.