Songs of Innocence and Experience, for better or worse, is a letter to life, love, death, and everything in between. It's a journal spanning the year and a half of a life, all recorded in a basement by two very different roommates, surrounded by concrete walls, a microphone, a couple of guitars, a couple of harmonicas, a keyboard, and a little digital 8-track. The record was done over 5 months in early 2006, and was literally built over that time. Michael Fitzgerald and Severin Thornton recorded and re-recorded about 20 songs, and somewhere along the way they figured out how to make a crappy basement sound like a real studio: know absolutely nothing and try absolutely everything. Fitzgerald (the Fitz behind Fitz) brought a couple of older songs in and basically ended up writing a whole bunch of new ones in the process, discarding a lot of the old songs he had planned to record in favor of brand new ones. The reason for this came through the inspiration of a simple title (the one this record uses) of a piece of literature written by William Blake. While the music and words have nothing to do with Mr. Blake's writing, the title gave Fitzgerald the idea to write a record that defined what those two words - innocence and experience - meant to him, and anyone who ever took one step outside of their door to see and feel the world. So with the brand new songs and inspiration, a story came together. It is a story about the journey through life, and all of the ups and downs that come with it; it is a story of love, faith, death, and how we are all trying to make sure our travels lead us back to somewhere or someone we can call home. So here's your open invitation. Come along for the ride.