Small Houses, AKA Jeremy Quentin, seems to be a songwriter in the old sense. That is, rather than following the writing-recording-touring-marketing-repeat cycle that is modern standard, he pretty much lives on tour and writes as he goes. And if you think this romantic image of a super-productive artist on the road is unlikely, he even admits to it himself:
“Something has come over me in the past year. I can’t stop writing, I won’t stop writing. It’s what I look forward to most in the day. Playing the guitar for hours, singing a little, driving 5 hours, then showing up in your town to show you what I’ve been working on. “
…but but but, unfortunately Quentin is all too aware of how much of a killjoy Real Life can be, with all of its inconvenient details like eating and sleeping and putting gas in the car:
“As you probably can imagine, the cash flow isn’t very steady in the music biz. Some days I’m on top of the world, eating 5$ hamburgers and changing the oil on the car 100 miles before it’s due. On other days, I’m coasting into the gas station on ‘E’ with a half eaten bag of craisens I found under the seat.”
Maybe eating scavenged food while riding on fumes is all part of the adventure, but unfortunately recording albums requires money. Just this February Quentin put out his superb album Still Talk; Second City (so recently we haven’t got around to writing about it yet), so the prospect of another expensive stint in the studio seems a long way off. In other words, while the romantic nomad musician can get by on little, his music cannot, and this is a particular problem for a romantic nomadic musician who is currently unable to stop writing.
So here’s the deal. You pledge on small amount of money in return for a digital download pre-order, and Quentin gets to make a new record and eat something other than craisens. It’s what crowd-funding was invented for! There are also luxury rewards for funders with a bit more cash to burn, from spots on the guest list to private house shows (almost) anywhere in the US, Canada, western Europe and Scandanavia (!). As if to prove his desire to get back into the studio, Quentin even signs off by saying “is there something else you’d want? Let me know, I’ll do it, I don’t even care what it is as long as we can get this album done.” So, if you need a lightbulb changing (almost anywhere in the US, Canada…) or something, make a donation and let him know.
It’s a fair bet that a Small Houses album will be a great album (see our review of Exactly Where You Wanted To Be) You can make your donation on the Small Houses GoFundMe page.
P.S. As if needed to placate us for this most welcome news, Quentin has put out a new song and video to accompany his request. Check out ‘Kinda Here’ below:
(The photo is from a roll of film Jeremy took on tour. You can view the other images here).