“The Party was written when I was in my mid-twenties and was released a few days before I turned twenty-nine. This time feels like a lost period for me. I was on the road in North America and Europe consistently, ‘partying’ a lot, letting alcohol lead me to experiences I thought necessary for having something to write about. My dream of becoming a touring musician and recording artist was starting to play out, but I avoided acknowledging that reality out of fear that it would vanish. It’s clearer now that this avoidance more so gave me an inability to see myself as the destructive force at the center of the chaos beginning to surround me.

“The Party didn’t happen because I knew what I was doing, it happened because I kept making mistakes. Four years of trying and trying again until eventually the happy accidents added up to something cohesive. It was a process of learning, like anything is. If I’d taken the same revisionist approach to my real life, maybe the lost period wouldn’t have stretched out for so long. Mistakes made in songs led to new arrangements and new approaches, mistakes in life led to more and more confusion and hurt. Thankfully life has allowed me the time to learn that I was simply lucky to have been given the chance to explore at all.” Read the essay in full at andyshauf.com.