Allow me to share a little story about this album…

A few years ago I attended a book publishers seminar in New York City. The keynote speaker, a skinny, middle aged gentleman took the podium with his brand new, two thousand page monstrosity of a book. He gave a brief presentation, and afterwards opened up the floor for questions.

Someone asked the skinny gentleman, "before the book deals, before the advances, before you were a New York Times bestseller (his last three books had been on the list)… when did you find time to write?" His response is something I took with me, and still find myself pondering from time to time. He informed the audience that at the time of his first novel he had a full time teaching position, a lovely wife and small but growing family. It wasn't his intention to neglect his loved ones or his job, besides, bread must be set on the table and somebody had to mow the lawn. His solution was to wake up early during the work week, before the kids, and write for an hour. Each Saturday, he would hit up the local public library and scribble until lunchtime. This process continued for, get this… 10 years. Finally the book was finished, and not too long after found its way to New York's list, and eventually to my apartment floor as a door stop for a couple years before I finally cracked it open.

If one image comes to my mind concerning "Turn the Lights On", it's of a 20' by 15' by 9' room lit by a single lamp. I spent a great deal of time sitting down in that room in the early, early morning hours and recording way to many overdubs and mixing and re-mixing, and mixing and re-mixing…never without my trusty "recording engineers how to" book on my lap (Owsinski you rock). These short five songs took just over a year to complete. I found that a diligent approach proved to be very helpful, and if I hoped to finish, absolutely necessary. Each morning before pressing record, I'd sip on a cup of coffee with my bible open, praying over these songs and asking that they'd draw people to, back, or closer to Jesus. From my mixing room, I'd head to the car to check the mix, decked out in flannel and slippers. I once waved to the paper boy as he'd arrived to drop off the news, he no doubt thought me crazy… I mean really, who sits in their driveway at that hour, with the car off, listening to music?

I do hope you dig these tunes, and I only wish they were packaged a little bigger, so a least you could prop it in a door if it didn't work out sonically for you… alas, might make a good coster? But here's to hoping & believing that the tunes will hit much deeper than that.


May the Grace, Peace, and Truth of Jesus Christ find and guide you. I've never regretted letting Him in.


- Bennett (a slightly younger, skinny gentleman)