There's a song on the new Al band record called "Building Balance," a super apt sentiment for all of us lately.

When you’re involved in a bigger project, your identity necessarily becomes wrapped up in that world. As the dust’s settled over the past few years, all of us have landed in similar places - grateful for every opportunity, proud of contributing to something that brings joy to so many, but aware that our stories can only be told in part through this band.

The upward momentum of a successful project's beautiful chaos to be sure, and it's easy losing the forest for the trees. The Allen project's a big-hearted goofy dude singing soul tunes, supported by a troop of kooky, mis-matched hooligans. It shouldn’t be any more complicated than that, and I've been guilty of leveraging unfair expectations on the thing because, well, I wasn't really doing other stuff. I'm grateful, now, for appreciating no one outlet, professional or otherwise, needs to have all the answers. When Allen's fronting the band and being one of the best singers of our generation, my job's playing guitar super cool every night. So, that's what I do, and I'd like to think I pull it off. When it's time to hit the stage solo, singing about my feelings, I leave all expectations from the Allen universe in the front lounge of the tour bus- it's back to rice and beans, grinding it out and the exhilarating unknown.

Right now, I'm feeling contentedly unaccomplished - a happy place for any relentlessly creative person - and I'm excited to see how all my artistic outlets feed one another.