For the past few years I’ve been working on a comprehensive collection of lyrics and music that address the topics of love, loyalty, friendship, faith, and resilience. I gave it the nickname Project 5, and it stuck. It’s five distinct but thematically linked projects — four new albums and a book — that I’m releasing throughout 2016. This project also marks the 20th year of me running my own label, Wilory Records. My first album in this series, “Love You Strong,” came out in February of this year. My father has the Purple Heart, the Soldier’s Medal, and — being a retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army — his own parking spot at Brooke Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas. He now takes care of my physically disabled mother full time. He can't make her well. But he can love her strong. Their story was the inspiration behind this collection of songs. In “The Texas Star,” I paid tribute to some Texas trailblazers that continue to inspire me. Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Barbara Jordan, Liz Carpenter, and Lady Bird Johnson may have all been the Democratic darlings of their time, but their legacy has outlived their political affiliation. My next album (scheduled for October 7th, 2016) gets its name from an actual slaughterhouse — renovated into an artist-friendly guesthouse — in El Prado, New Mexico, where I, along with my longtime friend and producer Lloyd Maines, started the sessions. I brought my iPad and some recording gear and we then built the tracks from there. Additional recording was done at Maines’ home studio in Austin. We wrapped it all up at The Zone in Dripping Springs, with many of the same A-list players featured on “Love You Strong” including bassist Glenn Fukunaga, drummer John Silva, keyboardist Riley Osborne, and drummer/engineer Pat Manske. Throughout the recording, we used crude hand drums for percussion. No cymbals. We tried to use modal chord inversions, without the 3rd of the chord, unless it was in a true minor key. On this album, the groove made for a comfortable place to tackle uncomfortable subject matter like war, poverty, and racism. The end result is a darker record both musically and lyrically — but not hopeless. After “The Slaughterhouse Sessions,” Project 5 will continue with two more albums: an EP of electronica music titled "Who Is Ann?" and another songwriter set, "Talk to a Human." Both albums hone in on the lack of real communication in a social media driven world. On the electronica album, the music itself will do the talking, as I wanted to get my message across on a more visceral level. Finally, Project 5 will wrap up with an autobiography I've been working on since 2003. It chronicles my lifelong journey living with a seizure disorder while simultaneously crisscrossing the globe as a performing singer-songwriter. It’s a brutally honest look about the way I have dealt with the realities of being a performer with epilepsy. It has taken all the themes of Project 5 — love, loyalty, friendship, faith, and resilience — to keep me going and not quit. Project 5 is not about defeat: It’s about courage — and the beauty of not only finding it in oneself, but sharing it with others. Terri Hendrix