Outside Looking In turns 10 today (August 22)

I can't believe it has been a decade since the release of OLI! Has it really been a decade?

Making OLI

OLI took about a year to go from pre-production to final released product. I recorded all of my bass tracks and most of my vocals at my apartment in Allston, Massachusetts. The bulk of my guitar tracks were recorded at my place while some of my guitar tracks were recorded at my friend's, Eric Ecklund's, place in Brookline, Massachusetts. We recorded all of Eric's guitars  at his place. We ended up playing together a lot. For example, Isang Gabi was a 2nd take of both of us recording at the same time.

I booked time at the awesome Waltz Audio in Boston for three days to record all the drums. I ended up doing some vocals there as well after I finished recording the drums. My friend Eric Pfeifer was my engineer at Waltz.

Eric P. mixed and mastered OLI at his studio.

OLI Was Just an Experiment

I did not believe that this album was going to sell well. I'm not a singer and I should have hired someone better to do that job. I wasn't counting on it because touring or really promoting it properly was never really in my plans. OLI was a therapeutic process for me. I was looking to close a chapter in my life as I was starting a new one. "This is an achievement no one can take away from me regardless of whether this will end up being commercially successful." This was my purpose for making OLI.

I was on my way to Hong Kong when the album was released because I was getting married. After the wedding, I split my time between Boston and Hong Kong a lot. I finally moved to Hong Kong in November 2007.

That whole time was the stressful transitional period in my life until that point. I couldn't give this album the proper attention it needed.

I learned so much from the process of making this CD.

OLI 10 Years On

After OLI I was in a few bands in Hong Kong. I also had the pleasure to play on Tadashi Goto's CD. My band projects didn't bare the fruits I was hoping they would bare, but such is life.

I have been actively working on a follow up for the past year. We've started the process over from scratch twice now. It is a work in progress and that's all I can say for now.

I really want to thank everyone who has listened to the music from this CD. I don't care whether you bought it or copied it. Whether you listened to it on Spotify or some other way. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my music. Music is best when shared.

OLI is available here: iTunes or Google Play or CD Baby