Void of Axis: Building the Seventh Studio Album (Beginnings)

I'd like to talk about my new album I am working on and really open up about my thought process working on it as well as what lead up to the decisions to make this record in the first place.

"Continue" was based off music I started in a side project to Void of Axis that I called Null Index probably back in 2015 so a lot of it is quite old. Not all of it was written during that time, Throw Me Away and Perfect came much later but tracks like "Everlasting Nothing, Love is a Sickness and Negativity" were made in 2015. The whole working idea I had behind Null Index was I would challenge myself to write a song, lyrics and record everything within a day and a lot of that stuff was born from those sessions. I could see myself in the future trying that approach again maybe for a sequel to "Continue" if I want to explore that 80's synthpop space again. "Continue" was a question to myself, at this time I was trying to get sober but also at the same time not being on top of myself about actually getting sober. So it was a question about whether I wanted to or if it was even possible for me to make music anymore. I was very scared to write music at the time and I didn't feel like I was ready to really open up about where I was so I took the pressure off of me and went in to my backlog and tried to find something that spoke to me in that moment and I had always wanted to release a lot of that music because I feel its really good but it just was never the right time when I would start to work on it. So taking the pressure off of me to write entirely new music I started to retool and finish up what I had made prior and that ended up becoming "Continue" and I am very happy that those tracks are not out in the world. I feel like I answered the question of whether or not I could continue to make music by releasing that album.

After "Continue" I took a break, I was still very scared of writing new music and part of that was because the last few songs I had released were "Perfect" and "One" which are some of the most upbeat and happiest songs I have ever made. Where I am currently is anything but that, and after much introspection I decided that if my audience truly enjoys my work they would want me to be honest with myself and write what experiences I am currently having. Void of Axis has always been a collection of experiences I have taken whether they been happy, traumatic, sad or angry, I take moments and use music as a form of therapy to get things off my chest. Right now the material I am writing has been some of the darkest I have ever written and when I first started I felt fans would dislike that since "Perfect" and "One" have shown I can make happier music and in the future I will make happier music but right now is not that time.

Since it has been years since I've written any new material I wasn't sure how to even start this time around, normally when I make an album I usually write a bunch of music first, then I go ahead and pick what I like best and write lyrics for those tracks. This time around its been completely different, I wasn't comfortable writing music because my past work would influence whatever would comes out and this time around I felt lyrics needed to be written. I challenged myself to write lyrics first without any music in mind just writing whatever I was feeling in that moment and the words just flowed. I have even found that I dropped a rule I had where words needed to rhyme in all my lyrics instead focusing on getting out exactly how was feeling in that moment completely. This has resulted in a lot of the lyrics feeling very confessional, deep and personal. It may be too personal for some honestly for some but this feels right to me and I am just going with my gut on this.

When I first created Void of Axis I had envisioned it to be an "audio/visual" project and the visual aspect of the project has been non-existent, I hope to change that going forward starting with this album as I have promised myself that I will not release the album until I feel like I have satisfied that part of the projects identity. In the past once I finish an album I just want people to hear it and throw it out there, this is a behavior I will change going forward. When I write albums I always have a visual in mind normally, when I created "Forest of Memories" I visualized myself in a forest surrounded by all of my memories and it being an ancient place of power that is home because all of who you are is there, our memories make us who we are.

When I finished about three songs I started to visualize where the album lives, I see depths that no light can reach where everything is cold, dark, dilapidated and desecrated. A place where all of my hopes and dreams have been thrown in to and now having sat in those depths for the last ten years they have become twisted and deformed amalgamations of there former selves to the point where I can't even recognize what they used to be in the first place. This is a place I willing threw myself in to ten years ago and only now ten years later am trying to climb out of. As I climb and see all I've done to myself, my hope and dreams, anger fills my heart, telling me to keep climbing. The closer I get to the top the more I can see the light but also I start to make out something else at the top, something dark, something sinister, something evil. I can see myself at the top looking down at me, hoping I fall.

That is when I figured out the title for the album, "Nothing and Nowhere". The title came from the idea that this place I am trapped in now is like a limbo, it feels like I am lost, unable to escape and I am trying my best but it all feels in vain, but I am not sad, I am just angry at this point. I want to get better, I want to have a good life, and I am tired of being in this place I will climb out of here and I won't let myself stop me. Let me be more direct if you want that, I am trying to escape my addiction which has completely destroyed who I was and my life, I am only now starting to get back in to finding who I am as well as that dark side of myself that wants to go back to it all but I know where that path leads, I have explored those depths and I don't want to die there. This album will be my climb to freedom.