I am so grateful that the story of the observer from Trickster all the way up to The Invisible Plan has been so interconnected. I was going through photos and organizing them and came across this photo of wildflowers from Zerospace:

Photographer Matthew Welch did the shoot with scenes of nature projected onto me (trees, rocks, leaves, sky, etc.) to symbolize finding the balance between us and nature. (Zer0space was about finding balance). That seed was planted. Enter The Invisible Plan, where things are taken into action, and the album artwork you can plant to grow wildflowers. Some (ok, actually many!) have called me a sentimental person. When stuff rocks itself out like this, it makes me go, “hmm, big ups to unplanned shit workin out!”

This is part of The Invisible Plan.
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All Good Things

Let’s cut to the chase:

We got a new EP for you: THE INVISIBLE PLAN

Who wants one? Pre-orders are September 20, 2011. Ship/Release date: October 18, 2011. You get something really special for pre-ordering….a surprise that you will know soon.

Why an EP? All album stories link from the first (Trickster). THE INVISIBLE PLAN is a prelude to the story of our next full album, which I’m not gonna give you quite yet. What am I if I’m not a tease. We already have songs started for the next full length.

Album story themes go like this:

Trickster: Cutting illusion, digging into the dirt, using your fire. How do you grow from that? Zer0space: Once you have the fire, how do you balance your internal world with your external world? Trypt0fanatic: Now that balance is attained, how do you pull the power of the dream into waking life for survival?

THE INVISIBLE PLAN: This is the ammunition you need, and to gather others in your circle, to create a united front to face the changes and challenges in the world. You can’t do it alone. How do you live your life so that THINGS FIND YOU?

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-in the Taxicab Messiah video during the “window” scene, my hand actually went THROUGH the window.  i went to the emergency room and filming stopped, never to resume.

-filming was delayed in the a.m. because a poor girl took her life in that location the night before.  I meditated in that space and put lots of light there, sending her compassion.

-in the Zer0space video, the substance in the tub was supposed to be heated, however, the water heater broke, and for approx 17 some odd hours I was tortured with COLD water, and the only heat was from the commercial coffee maker which had to be warmed up every 10 minutes… they would pull me out every 3 or 5 minutes to put me standing in this hot water, only to go back inside the cold tub.  i looked like YODA by the next a.m. when we finished.

-in Zer0space video, there was supposed to be a cat following the trail of “milk” and another side story.  However, the cat had a prior engagement.  Luckily, no one really cares if there’s a story when there’s nudity involved.

-while doing Trickster artwork, my naked body was painted with a white clay like substance, and at the end of the shoot, i looked like a white painted zombie with white dreads… when i was being driven home, we would pull up next to people in their cars and scare the shit out of them.

-Matthew Welch, the shooter of Zer0space artwork also did the Ours artwork and “Sometimes” video. I have a feeling we will work again in the future.

-Brian Bowen Smith did our very first Zer0space PR shoot, and not only was I his first music gig, but when we met, we realized we were linked up with some mutual friends (one of them being the Taxi video director!), and have been friends/fam ever since.

-While at a coffee shop recently, I ran into Corey Campodonico, who did the Zerospace video. We reconnected and he will be doing the next video for The Invisible Plan. Crazy enough, he used certain words that me and my manager had used in our meeting about what the video should be…he totally tapped into it without me ever saying anything.

-Every single shoot I’ve done has ended up with nudity. Not for sexual exploitation, but because there is something about the human body that is timeless, with no fad or style…and we really try to achieve “artwork.” I realize that there will come a time someday when I may have to outsource that part. Cameo anyone?

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