Fight For Your Freedom Friday – Episode 4

Support Everytown by purchasing The New Normal!

FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode), File Length: 00:06:11

00:00:01:04 – 00:00:30:18

Hello, everybody. This is the fourth installment of my new series called Fight for Your Freedom Friday. I’m recording this from my home studio, which is a guest room. There’s my guitar over there. I just quickly, this week I wanted to mention a song project I just worked on with the help of Rich Emery, who’s a great producer. If you want to look him up. Richard Emery he’s really great. 

00:00:30:29 – 00:00:56:02

And so he helped me produce this song called The New Normal. I just want to tell you a little bit about it. I wrote it back in 2018. I had actually been planning to write about it for years before that. It’s a song about gun violence, which is a very important topic right now in America. And so I got the idea, you know, I mean, many of you have heard of the organization Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety. And I’ve been a member since the founding when Shannon Watts founded this almost ten years, ten years ago. And I just wanted to tell about the song because it’s it’s actually well, somebody described it. It’s kind of like I guess the genre I write in mostly is rock and somebody that I know described it as, “If the Foo Fighters, Pink Floyd got together and were raging against the machine.” So I guess that gives you some idea what it sounds like. And so I hope you’ll check it out. And especially the reason I wanted to talk about it today is because it’s only available exclusively on Bandcamp. And Bandcamp is having their special Friday first Friday of the Month, a series that they started in March of 2020. Usually they take a 15% share of any song purchases. 

00:02:01:00 – 00:02:31:09

But for the first Friday of the month, I think going until the end of the year, like December 2nd, I guess would be the last one. So it’s today, September 2nd, and then the first Friday of every month until and then until December, maybe even they’ll be continuing it after that. But anyway, I’m going to put some of the links in my post and go check that out. And the link to the song I actually wrote, The New Normal is like two versions of it. One is a full version, which is like over 6 minutes long. 

00:02:31:11 – 00:03:04:27

And then there’s the radio edit version and they’re both available as an album for $1 and all the proceeds from that are going to be contributed to every town. I’m already a monthly donor, I already send the money, but I wanted to do something extra to help, especially now with the midterm elections here in the States. It’s just really important for us to get more gun sense candidates elected. And, you know, I know sometimes it seems like things are really bleak, but really behind the scenes, Everytown and the Moms Demand Action. 

00:03:04:29 – 00:03:37:05

The Students Demand Action. Volunteers have been making such a difference, you know, since Moms Demand Action was found in the the NRA has like has like 5 million members, but Moms Demand Action Everytown has 10 million members. So if that doesn’t say anything, I don’t know what does. They’ve passed so many laws as some new laws this year. Gun sense laws, just practical laws, you know, not infringing on people’s Second Amendment rights. 

00:03:37:07 – 00:04:22:01

I mean, that’s that’s not what this is about. This is about public safety and people being able to go shopping at the supermarket store anywhere without, you know, being massacred anywhere, especially people of color. I mean, they’re getting the brunt of this. You know, they’re disproportionately more likely to be shot and die by gun violence than any other groups. And it’s just it’s really, you know, basically white people. It’s just not, it’s not right. And we need to keep fighting and changing things because the majority of people really want gun sense in America. So my writing the song was just, you know, the least I could do to help change things for the better. 

00:04:22:03 – 00:04:54:22

So I really hope you’ll consider going to Bandcamp.com and buying my song for dollar. Also, if you are already a member of Everytown or you’ve already contributed, then please just go to my website, theamusic.com. Send me a message with a copy of your receipt of your recent donation from, you know, since the song came out in July. So anything from, you know, if you’ve donated since July, just send me a receipt and I’ll send you a free download of the song just in appreciation for, you know, already sending some money to them. 

00:04:55:05 – 00:05:33:04

But if you care to send extra, that would be great because, you know, the song’s only a dollar. And if you like it, I hope you buy it. And I’m going to send that money. I’m waiting until the midterms. In the midterms, actually. It’ll be for a month before the midterms to send in any money that I make from the song. But then after that, I’m going to keep sending any proceeds. But, you know, I’m going to wait until I have donations up until October 8th, actually, and then I’m going to send those to Everytown and then keep collecting whatever I can and sending them my monthly donations and getting involved. 

00:05:33:13 – 00:06:10:28

If you want to know more, you can go to the Everytown, everytown.org website. They just posted a thing about all of the state victories that have happened this year for gun sense. And, you know, it’s really making a difference. And if you’d like to join and help out, you can text join J-O-I-N. join or ready R-E-A-D-Y to 644-33. If you would like to get involved or just write to me and I’ll send you some, some information. So thank you. This has been a really long post, but I have a lot to say today, so thanks and have a great weekend.