Josh Berwanger could easily be considered a veteran of the rock and roll wars. He first made a name for himself as a member of The Anniversary, a seminal Kansas band that released two glorious albums (2000’s Designing a Nervous Breakdown and 2002’s Your Majesty) in the early 2000’s before calling it a day. Undeterred, Berwanger put together a new band, The Only Children, who would go on to release two criminally underrated records (2004’s Change of Living and 2007’s Keeper of Youth) before pulling the plug in 2009. Having experienced the highest highs and lowest lows involved with chasing your muscial dreams for the better part of two decades, Berwanger found himself at crossroads—should he finally hang up his guitar for good or should he soldier on, pulling together his best tunes and holing up with a group of friends to make the best no-bullshit rock and roll record possible? Luckily, he chose the latter. “I didn’t want to make another California country-rock record,” says Berwanger. Part of me that really wants music to be normal again. I don’t even know what I mean by that exactly, but I know what normal isn’t—designer outfits, fireworks, synthesizers everywhere, crazy gimmicks. I don’t know how to relate to that. I want things to be more like Nirvana. I wanted to make rock and roll. I wanted to make something honest.” Recorded at Hideaway Studios in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Berwanger features contributions from Jim Macpherson (The Breeders, Guided by Voices), Max Bemis (Say Anything), Eva Gardner (Pink, Mars Volta) and former Anniversary bandmate Adrianne Verhoeven. The ten tracks on the record show Josh Berwanger doing what he has always done best—writing songs that are thick with melodies and hum-along choruses that go on for days. These are rock songs in the classic tradition, born out of love, heartbreak, fear and frustration. They are songs that sound as big and open and honest as a Kansas skyline and speak to the struggle unique to someone trying to slug it out in the music business for most of their adult life. Berwanger is, any many ways, a visceral statement about what it means to keep doing what you love—even when it feels like you are doing so against all odds. “The experience of making this record was great,” says producer/engineer Marc Benning, who also played bass on the record. “I really have been trying to quit music for quite some time. I really only make it into the studio if I really love the songs and the personalities involved. Josh is awesome, both as a dude and as songwriter. I can totally get behind him, so it was nothing but good times.” “This record almost didn’t get made,” says Berwanger. “I had to really ask myself, Why am I still doing this? I had get back to the core reasons why I ever made music in the first place. I just wanted to make a good rock and roll record. In the end, me and the band decided that we wanted to make the kind of record that would make our moms proud...even though that might just be the most un-rock and roll idea ever."