Nine Canvases Beneath the Oaks

"Some things from my dreams."

I suppose it’s time for a little update at the start of 2026.

I’m in the process of recording the next Diamonds Hadder record, which means a lot of work, a lot of loud mixes, and frequent trips to the Pacific to ponder the meaning of life beyond the breakers. When it’s quiet, you can be sure I’m in the tower, candlelight flickering across my crazed look and wild eyes as I scream and wail something into the world that wasn’t there before—literally pouring the last blood from my veins into something that can live long after I’m dead and gone.

A twist here. A curve mid-band. A fader pull and a whisper pan. Sub or no sub. Or that thing that sang. Muted here but not there and… I do so love the little things.

I don’t know where to start, as my mind has been racing for weeks.

Breakers II and The Golden Tower:

As I begin this process of hanging eight new canvases around the yard here under the oaks, I also hung one canvas of the Golden Tower. It’s a song that was started in the middle of the first Breakers record. This canvas is deep and dark at times. I’m not sure if the track will be on Breakers II, but it will be a beautiful canvas when it’s done.

I only have some details left to paint and a few puzzle pieces that are bothering me, but I’m close to signing the tower. I actually finished an “unreleased” video on the demo version of this song, which is quite the visual. As soon as I have that special final mix day with all the puzzle pieces in place, I’ll release it on YouTube as a music video. Maybe it will find its way onto a B-side vinyl for the second Hadder record—we’ll see.

I miss the blank canvas of a fresh new song. So far, I have a few backgrounds on a few boards, but I’m leaving three of them completely blank for now because I love those first few brush strokes. I’m balancing my time between several pieces.

The Tower piece is in the key of C, which is a bit of a stretch for me. I love the sound of old music and standard tunings to some degree, as it sits with my tenor quite eloquently. But every canvas tells a story, I suppose, and this one is colored in dark and somber tones.

How about a little story?

My Lord:

I was auditioning guitarists for the first Breakers record while I was in the middle of tracking “Rivers End” in a rehearsal building in Vernon, CA, when I received an email with a few original tracks attached. As I often do, I answered the email while driving to the studio and started singing to the songs as they blasted in my truck on the 101 freeway.

One of the songs suddenly became “Lord of the Golden Tower,” as those were the first words that came out of me on that ride. I liked it so much that I decided to take a break from “Rivers End” and track the vocals that day.

And so, that’s how things like that happen.

Suddenly there was a song called “Lord of the Golden Tower,” partially written around the turmoil of my life and my search for who I was—or what I was supposed to do with this life. The only weapon I ever wanted to wield was my voice, and by now, on this long journey I’ve had, I suppose I can hold my own with any sword-wielding foe.

The music was only a demo at the time, and although I liked the vocals and the beginnings of the track, I knew it was really just the start. I finished it quickly for closure and moved on to completing the Breakers record. In the distance, it sat there… haunting me occasionally, asking, “What will you do with me? Who are you?”

Fast forward to late 2025, after the “Long Road” music video was behind me and I began the real process of the next chapter of Diamonds Hadder. The Tower track finally had a place to come through.

“I sailed away into the black, with open eyes to find… a reason worth the rhyme.”

I decided to redo all the music under my demo vocals and keys and revisit the arrangement, which meant seven-string guitars and a five-string bass. It’s been about two or three months now on this canvas, off and on, and it’s so close. Occasionally I take a break and stare at one of the other canvases for perspective.

Like everything I do, soon I’ll sign it and set it adrift in this vast ocean of noise we’re all swimming—or sinking—in.

“No distress was sent, no letter left, no somewhere end… no Jack or Jill, just a whisper that said…”

You know.

Noises in the dark.

Some thoughts.

This winter I upgraded the studio here under the oaks, doing my best to create a room where I could work faster. Lots of small upgrades aimed at shortening the distance between the start and end of the Breakers II creation. It’s working nicely so far.

It’s dark in me when I’m making a record. A lot of the things I struggle with show up in the Hadder songs. Somehow the characters of my never-ending novel—Hadder and his companions—trample through my day-to-day life.

My biggest adversary to date is time. I simply lack the time it takes to get it all out of me, and that’s disappointing to some degree. I watch ideas drift out my window, and although I try my best to catch them all, some great ones are gone—never to return, for whatever reason.

Life can be as beautiful as it is miserable. I like to focus on the front half, although I’m painfully aware of the other side.

I could go on and on, but let’s end it here. I have so much work to do.

Soon there will be a new Hadder song and video filled with love, passion, and color. I hope you like it. But more important than that, I hope that while you’re walking along a river one day—listening to her ripples and rocks, the wind blowing your hair across your face, all alone—gazing at the leaves as they flutter in the watery reflection… that in that moment, you’re reminded of who you are and what you are. That it gives you the strength to fight for something when all hope feels lost.

And if it inspires you to dream a little about places and things beyond the horizon we see… well, I suppose that would be nice too.

God bless, friends. Stay your own course.

—j

Three Batteries and some Skeletons Above the Seeds

"To the place, this coin delivered be just, where the sleepy narrows run, by a diamond prince and a dream master must. To the deep, returned, below the hidden fall, That giver be, forever granted, his evermore.”

“BEEP BEEP BEEP”… I awoke Saturday night at 2:00 a.m. to the sound of my CO₂ alarm going off as the house filled with carbon monoxide while I slept. Turns out, a cracked vent on the furnace under my house was the problem. I had just started using the furnace again after a long, hot summer. 185 ppm — for those who don’t know about CO₂ readings — is not exactly a cozy sleep, unless you’re not planning to wake up.

Once I cleared the house and checked on Lord Giggles and Lady Bug, I sat down to ponder the moment and check the batteries on the CO₂ alarm — three little AA batteries that I imagine were put in the unit just before I arrived back in the canyon. The year on the device said 2023. Around the time I was releasing the Breakers record, someone was putting these three batteries in this device — not knowing me, and not knowing that on some fateful night in 2025, they might save a life, and who knows, save the idea of a Breakers II record. Funny how life works… you just never really know when it’s all going to stop. I suppose that’s all the more reason to stop fucking around and do whatever the hell you want in this life — without apology.

While we’re on the topic of batteries — I have a thing for them. When I was living at 200 North, working on the Breakers record, I used 9-volt batteries in an iRig preamp that lived in my car. I’d use it to vocalize while driving an hour into L.A. every day for years. Those dead batteries accumulated into a pile, which I painted chrome and kept stacking in the loft above my studio on the east side of Los Angeles. I used that stack as motivation — I knew each battery represented about fifteen hours of vocalizing. I’ve always been this way… looking at the little things as they stack up, keeping quiet, and doing the work over long periods of time.

The morning after that carbon monoxide “almost-dead” adventure, I started to think about how things break down — my car driving into the city, the pavement, our relationships, my furnace, my voice. Half of everything is in a constant state of decay. Yet there’s another half of life that’s growing and expanding to some degree: a seed to a flower, a child to an adult. Even a dream grows if you decide to nurture it.

This is a pattern I see a lot here under the oaks. Just three weeks ago, my hillside was tall dead grass as autumn and winter had their way with my spring bloom. Then, about a week into winter, when all the spiders were done webbing my yard, the first big rains came — and two days later, my hill was a carpet of green. What might have looked dead was really just the skeletons above the seeds.

My mind wants to go to that dark place a lot — as though everything is in a state of decay, filled with loss and sadness. But it simply isn’t true. There’s always something hidden underneath what you see.

Anyway, just some deep thoughts today as I’m working on the next Hadder record. Breakers II will be something special — I know it. Before I release the next record, I’ll be putting out a new song with a music video attached.

Enjoy a little visual from what I’ve been working on.

BREAKERS II: The recording studio for breakers II, much like a painters studio, is littered with some new beautiful colors and tools for me to work with and I’ve been dreaming up something very special for the next chapter of this Hadder adventure. Three new batteries in the CO2 alarm and a few new lower strings, Oh my, what a life we live.

God bless you all.

– J

Breakers II and The Chill of Winter

Somewhere down the river...

A little update today. It’s autumn.

Been a little while since an update, so what’s new on the Hadder front? Oh, lots of things.

Breakers 2:Well, after the release of the LITR music video, I started working on the next Hadder record, among other things. Considering I play all the instruments on the record, I wanted to update the studio with a few new instruments to pick from while I’m tracking. So I welcomed two new Yamaha basses and a Steve Vai Universe 7-string. I’ve also updated the studio with an SSL 18 interface to accommodate the additional inputs I’ll need.

The last days of summer have been mostly about upgrading the studio for Breakers 2. The first Hadder record was recorded entirely with 6-string guitars and a 4-string bass in standard tunings, but I wanted to experiment with some 7-string orchestrations for the next record—so we’ll see how that turns out. I’m not really interested in changing the sound of Hadder, but I do have ideas about stretching the boundaries of the dynamics in the music, if I can do it while maintaining that old sound. It’s an experiment at this stage. I have some ideas that keep knocking on my chamber door.

The Next Tower:Aside from the next Breakers record, I’ve been tracking some new music for a demo I did under the “Ramsey/Evermore” banner—a song called Lord of the Golden Tower. I filmed a music video for the demo version over the last two months, but before I release it, I wanted to re-record all the music in the new studio using some of the new instruments, gear, and ideas I’ve been having. It’s somewhat of a test for me—a little fun while making the next record.

I had this new chapter in the Hadder novel that I’ve yet to put on paper, and it inspired this next music video. Finally, we’ll get to see Hadder on his way down the river as he meets Meridian for the first time. She’s an interesting one—a long story she has. I don’t want to say too much about her right now, but let’s just say she’s very cunning, and Hadder would be wise to keep his distance from her and “The Church of Falling Rivers,” which she founded there on that red river.

As AI video gets stronger and stronger, it’s allowed me to bring some of these characters to life in a way that simply wasn’t possible years ago. I’m grateful for that, as the Diamonds Hadder novel I see in my head could never really come to life—financially speaking—without this technology.

Overall, the last few months have been a pleasant mix of studio upgrades, new musical ideas, and cleaning up some of the mess in my life—much of it attributed to the madness and hyper-focused attention I had on the LITR music video. Obsession doesn’t leave much room for anything else, and really, I’ve just been clearing the spell I was under.

As I type, autumn clouds are rolling through the yard as the blue jays converse and the cold of winter moves into the canyon. Fire season soon, as I’ll be tracking Breakers 2 with Mr. Evermore and Jups. Occasionally I wake and wonder why I’m even making records the way I make them—since art seems like a lost cause in this day and age—but then I hit the gym, get my dose of dopamine, and it brings back that simple reason I’ve always wanted to make records: it’s simply fun being a willing vessel of the sonically unknown, creating sounds, melodies, and noises through my own time and reflection of the world. My own something from nothing, forever.

Oh yeah—fun. Remember that three-letter word.

Aside from the next Hadder record, which I will write and record on my own, I may start a project called John Evermore and the Haunted Golden Orchestra—a band of ghostly AI musicians that write songs I simply sing on in elaborate fashion, with an emphasis on heavy opera, my own 40-piece choirs, and dramatic 70’s-style orchestral play. At least that’s what the wind keeps whispering. We’ll see if anything comes of it. There are only so many ideas you can follow down the rabbit hole in this short life we’re given.

Reminds me of an old book I used to read:

If Hadder wants to explore the Golden Orchestra… turn to page 16.

If Hadder wants to buy a Sprinter van and photograph national parks for the next two years… turn to page 103.

If Hadder wants to make the next classic Hadder record—the fateful, hand-made, Breakers 2 life-worthy masterpiece… just keep reading.

Stay the course.

-J