And so that's really what Masquerade is. It is a re-release of American Dream, but in the big scheme of things, American Dreams was out for a very short period of time, very few people even know about it and it really felt like Masquerade is a more complete version of American Dream anyway. So we're really trying to. . . We want this record to have the breakthrough that we feel it deserves before we move on, because we don't feel like out music is disposable, you know?
Sure. And the titles are pretty complementary in some sense.
(laughs) Yeah, really. For sure.
(laughs) And it fits with everything that happened, too. With the whole, like. . . You know, 'cause it's like, even though I'm in the Christian market, I still deal with the same stuff I used to deal with back when I was in the secular market. It's like, I've been taken advantage of. I've been burned. And it's like this big game where. . . you know, the reason I called this album Masquerade is because everyone's going around saying that the Christian market is an industry that you can be real in, but then everyone has this mask that they put on and there's a lot of fake activity going on. (laughs) And it's time to really let go of that.
Yeah. I think it's more that the Christian market should be a place where you can be real, moreso than it is. Exactly. We all wish it would be that way and it can be that way, it's just going to take people speaking up.
Definitely. So, did you have to change the title because of some sort of contractual agreement?
I did and I didn't. The whole Masquerade concept felt better to me than the whole American Dream concept did anyway. You know what I mean? I like that the title says. . . It's more of a summary of the entire theme whereas American Dream was a more specific thing, you know? So, to me, Masquerade is a much better title, overall, but I did have to change it because when we pulled out. . . There's a bunch of legal issues still going on with that company we were with and that album, the American Dream album. . . If we would wait for all the legal stuff to finish out and clear out, we would have to wait an extra year or so to get that album back out and into the hands of the people and I just wasn't willing to wait that long. Again, I feel like the message needs to get out there. That's why I worked for three years to get it done.
Fair enough. So we gave it a new title and gave it a facelift and put it back out there with some new songs.
A lot of good albums have been held up due to legal issues.
Yeah, for sure, and I just don't want to be another one. . . You know, I do feel like this album, being my first album, really does represent, in a nutshell, what I'm about and what they can expect to hear from me in the future. So it's like, if I skip over this one, (laughs) I don't get my foundation.