I feel sometimes that life can be very one-dimensional. Work, eat, sleep & repeat. Many times, we need other outlets in life to be anything but one-dimensional. When I wrote Coming Home, I put myself in the shoes of a few people, one being my cousin, who is serving overseas right now, giving a year of his life. I imagine he feels the same as we do in the sense of wanting to come home. But home, as they say, is certainly who you are with, so you’d better make sure who you’re with is worthy of coming into your house. I also feel a deeper sense of the meaning of Coming Home, in the spiritual sense of seeing someone you love again someday. My grandpa comes to mind, who was more of a father than anything to me. I guess all I really mean to say is that everything comes to an end. If it all comes to an end, that's truly what makes it special: being able to have it in the first place. I hope you don’t take your life or the people in your house for granted. We only get this life and the people in it for a short amount of time. I’m learning day by day to show compassion towards those closest and even furthest from me when at times it’s very hard. When it is hardest, that’s when the 30-second dash cam kicks in to record and see if you will pass or fail the test. I hope you pass. Much Love TB
DIALTONE..
Like all my music, I would hope this song is relatable. I know everyone deals with rejection from time to time, and for a lot of us, before we know what’s going on, a parent has already abandoned us. For some of us both. DIALTONE.. for me, is the anthem of abandonment, but it turned into something uplifting and positive. Sometimes, being negative just isn’t fun anymore, and you have to just turn it around. Many times when we grow the most is when life sucks the most, whether we want to believe it or not. If you always take the same path, you’ll always end up in the same place. I think also DIALTONE.. for me, can be a friend that you’re calling over and over, trying to wake them. Trying your best to bring them up a level and get them to step out and try something new and just simply believe in themselves. I hope that I can make an impact positively on someone’s life that’s exactly what I want to do. I know my pop music and also my deathcore band (JUST DUST) isn’t for everyone, but I love having a broad window to reach people and try to help bring them up and help even in a small way to change their lives for the better. If you’re still here with me, I really appreciate it. If you don’t stop, you can’t fail. Much Love TB
Just Dust -Feel the Weight
Feel the Weight takes me to a place of forgiveness. Although this song is the perspective of being within the depths of someone's grasp that is holding you down. As I listen to it back, I feel forgiveness for that person. Things are always easier in hindsight, but we often don't learn the lesson, which leads us to go around the mountain again and again because we haven’t learned the same lesson. I am to the point in my life where I want to stop going around the same pathways again. I am finally humbled enough to try and realize it as it comes, and it is upon me to learn the lesson the first time, not the 40th. A large part of that is forgiving people who have done you wrong, no matter how awful, because, at the end of the day, forgiveness is for you and not them. You have to let the baggage go. So, though, I can write songs about people and times in my life when I was done wrong. I can also move past them and grow and strive to be better than they were and better than I was yesterday. Feel it, really feel it, whether it was good or bad what you’ve done. Genuinely ask yourself, is this what I really want? I hope this one resonates. ‘Feel the Weight’ was written in an hour. But like they say, it only took me 10 years to write a hit in an hour. Lyrically, it took me almost 15 years to move past the pain and create something positive out of it. Much Love TB
Live Like I'm Dead
This song is the epitome of having fun and not taking things so seriously. But only because life, indeed, is serious. Not to run it in the ground, but I had a stroke, and things changed for me, my mindset and actions to match them, most of all. I think we all need that kick in the rear to get ourselves into gear at a certain point. I just realized today, on the day of releasing this song, that in the bridge, I say ‘cuz the hole in my heart feels like a bullet in my head.’ I wrote this two months before I had a stroke, yet I didn’t know at the time that I did indeed have an actual hole in my heart that later was closed with surgery. I think I was running really fast and going a whole lot of nowhere most of that time. Having an event like this changed me. I’m grateful to have had a reset and I’m happy to focus forward and make music that I genuinely love. If I pick up some listeners on the way that sounds pretty good too. I hope you all find your place and passion. Without it, I think you’ll either chase or run, neither of which will get you to your true destiny. Much Love TB
Just Dust - Fall From Grace
From the top of the cathedral to the bottom of the barrel. People of all shapes and forms and colors have been through so much BS in the last five years. This song and the next four on this EP are an amalgam of my frustration over the last few years of how awful we’ve become towards each other. I don’t think it is inherently our fault when the machine is pushing us to fight and kill each other over scraps. How much longer can we keep this up? With the rigged election coming this November, I don’t see much good in the future on the outside; sometimes, you have to look inside. Fall From Grace is us choosing to neglect the values we know are correct. But when the tube is on (or our phones in hand) and cranked at full volume at full doom-scroll speed, it’s hard to get a clue. Trust me, I get it. This upcoming EP is me trying my best to wake people up in every way possible to STOP giving in to the things that are killing the world we know. ‘Such little gold for your soul.’ I have seen people sell out in ways unimaginable over the last few years, and it’s sickening. Do not trade freedom for security. Will we Fall From Grace or Prevail? I guess we’ve all got a front-row seat to the show. Much Love TB
Love it & Leave it There
If you’ve read any amount of my lyrics or blog posts about any of my songs, I think you’ll see that none of them are black and white with the meaning of the song. ‘Love it & Leave it There’ is no different. I feel that the song embodies the feelings of whether it’s a person you love (or used to) or a career, friendship, or anything in between that sometimes you have to let it go no matter how you feel about it. If it’s a relationship, sometimes it just gets to be too much, and the person doesn’t feel the same as they once did, or maybe it’s your feelings that have changed. Perhaps it’s a ‘drug’ or something you are addicted to that you may love but it’s not what’s best for you. I’d argue that, in most cases, it probably wasn’t true love anyway. At the end of the day, we are on a spinning rock in space where nothing is promised day to day. Cherish what you love for as long as you have it, and If all signs point to letting it go, then do what is necessary. I hope you find your purpose however and don’t let go of it until it’s your time to go. Much Love TB
10 Min Manifest
"A rising tide lifts all boats" I think there’s been plenty of times in my life where I’ve had drastic ups and downs and it’s simply as the wind blows. What I’ve learned is no matter what happens you have to find a reason to keep going no matter what the reason is. ‘I don’t wanna be a loner at the top’ this is me manifesting on the spot. I’ve been on both sides of the coin of jealousy and it’s a losing battle either way. I decided a while back that I was going to force myself to be happy even for my enemies because someone with that attitude is completely unstoppable. No one that’s working harder than you has time to talk bad about you. Because guess why? They’re grinding, all the while you’re getting further behind; no longer. We’re on the way up baby no matter if they see it or not. I’m very grateful for my days as of late, I’m learning that you can’t lose when you’re thankful for the very breath in your lungs. I have been tested and tested the last year dealing with life threatening medical issues to family stress and no being able to work but I’m manifesting the life I always wanted and doing everything I want to do. I hope you do the same my friend. Much Love TB
JUST DUST - The Machine
If the fuel is the media then the flame has all of us burning alive. We are being sold on agenda’s and beliefs we know aren’t true but because the establishment or a certain side or party is affiliated with it then we must support it or we’re forced to be the outcast. No thanks I’ll continue on alone if that’s what it takes. I hope this track seriously resonates in someones spirit because there are too many things we’ve let slide these last few years. It’s time we THINK for ourselves and realize we don’t have to conform, don’t have to act or pretend to be something we’re not anymore. “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” - G. Michael Hopf It is time to change the narrative. The Machine needs to be brought to it’s knees because it is no longer serving it’s purpose (if it ever did). I think we were promised a lot of thing’s that are smoke and mirrors and the gun always seems to be smoking in our hands when the buck stops. People are starting to wake up and this is the beginning of a new wave and even if it looks like the end I’ll die defending life, values, people, God and a country that helps the helpless. I refuse to give in to the sickness that is running rampant currently. If you don’t wake up it may be your head on the chopping block next. The time for being timid is over. Please relate. Much Love TB