You may not know this about me, but I never intended to make music. If you’ve listened to my Voices from the Void interview, you will know that EVE wasn’t my first musical endeavour, but that is was my first concentrated endeavour.

And boy, did it take a lot of concentration to get this far. Of course, the fan support hasn’t hurt either, so thanks in advance for that.

As with every EVE musical attempt I’ve made, this one was inspired by ingame events that sparked the muse within me, that urged me to tell my story.

Incursions was coming.

I did a small COMMERCIAL wherein Roc Wieler stood in defiance of Sansha Kuvakei, calling him out so to speak. Shortly after that, I did a few blog musical intros for fellow EVE bloggers, but still the muse was not satisifed; the story hadn’t been told to my satisfaction.

JANUARY 2011

I realize how much I’ve enjoyed the Incursions expansion. It feels fluid, dynamic, a story in development that every pilot has a role in. I’ve been there for some of the initial big battles. It’s amazing to see all the Empires united, not shooting at each other, banded as one to fight a common enemy.

I need to make a movie soundtrack.

FEBRUARY 2011

I don’t know how Hans Zimmer makes it seem so easy. This is ridiculous. Why can’t I decide on the basic instruments? What is the bad guy going to sound like? Does Roc’s theme change? Has he grown since Bio? How do I reflect this? Argh.

MARCH 2011

Ok, that’s ten 20 second tracks, enough to get the overall feel right. Let’s start fleshing it out. While I thank PyjamaSam for the MIDI keyboard he gave me, I seriously need to get a better one.

APRIL 2011

It’s all wrong. None of it is working. None of it feels epic. It’s disjointed, all over the place. This isn’t the story I wanted to tell. Can I salvage any of it? Should I bother? Life is so busy right now. No, the muse must be satisifed.

MAY 2011

Ok, it has flow again. This is actually pretty good. Need to change up the order a bit, break up the monotony. I need to research more, listen to the great composers, add more variety and emotion to my music. There’s never enough time.

JUNE 2011

Cripes! What am I going to do with three and a half hours of music? Geez, when the muse wants, the muse gets. I need to start editing this, narrow it down. There is way too much here. I’m going to walk away for a while, listen to it fresh.

Ok, sent it to various colleagues and friends to listen to for an honest opinion.

JULY 2011

I can always count on those close to me to be brutally honest in their critiques. It’s very helpful. Down to just under two hours of music, still way too much.

Listening to it anew, I can see places that still don’t work, that lose flow, that leave me unhappy with the overall feel. Time to start editing some more.

AUGUST 2011

Ok, this turned out far better than I could’ve hoped for. I’ve learned so much in the process! I feel I’ve grown a lot in this album.

What do you mean it has to be broken into two albums? That one and a half hours is too long for a single release? My fans aren’t going to pay for two releases. What do you mean it has to be flagged as explicit because one track contains explicit lyrics? That’s ridiculous. What do you mean we have to charge more for the two 11 minute tracks because they have to be categorized as extended tracks? No, I’m not editing them down. Fix this. You’re my publisher. Make it work.

Yes, thank you Ritchie. I’m happy to know the ad will make it into the October release of EON magazine.

Yes, I’ve released a promo video for the album on YouTube. Every little bit of marketing helps.

SEPTEMBER 2011

Ok, that’s better. One release. One explicit track. Yeah, fine, two extended tracks that are priced higher individually. Fine. Yup, here’s the artwork and MP3 tagging. Yes, they are 256k high quality versions. Ok, so we’re good to go? Fantastic.

I’m going to release a few on Grooveshark, whet the appetite of my fans.

Oh hell, how did I forget to update my Facebook fan page. No wonder my followers aren’t growing. Sigh.

Holy smokes! It’s far more effort to market this thing than it was to make it! I’m sure this is why companies have so many people involved. It’s really not easy doing it all on your own. I have good fans. They’ll market it too, I’m sure.

Well, only a few days left. Need to Twitter it up! More facebook posts. More word of mouth. Maybe add some more tracks to Grooveshark? I don’t know.

Still need to figure out what I’m doing for Roctoberfest. Man, how cool is it that my name worked out that way?

Hmm, seems Amazon already has the album listed for pre-order, but has the price wrong. I’ll have to contact my publisher.

Ok, everything is in order for the release. Finally, I can breathe.

Oh, fired from my fulltime career. Lovely. Well, at least I have time now.

Let’s start working on the next album…