Autumn of 81

My husband, Peter: You are my best friend and a man of integrity, strength, and honor. You invested in this album with recording software, studio components and a constant faith in my abilities long before I had the courage to try any of this! You saw the vision and believed in me before I believed in myself. You cheered me on every step of the way, reminding me that no time spent struggling my way through the process was ever wasted time; that every little detail was a learning opportunity! Then, as I neared the end, I’d stumble upon you jamming out to one of the bootleg versions of my songs and my heart would burst with joy at the realization that my husband and lifelong concert-buddy had now become my most committed fan. Thank you for doing every possible thing to make this dream a reality! 

Erik: You are my Day One! You walked me through this entire album from start to finish while giving me the space to learn on my own. Whether we were sitting together physically and knocking out hours of production at once or whether you had to remotely access my computer and drag tracks into Dropbox because it was easier than explaining it, thank you! Your attention to detail, the way you listened to me and respected me as a fellow artist and co-producer while also putting years of talent and skill into each track made for the perfect partnership on this project. The live drums you played on Obvious are PERFECTION and I am certain there are hours of tedious tweaking that I may never even be aware of. Thank you for making my first attempt at production and engineering sound so much better than it ever could without you! Let’s do this again soon! 

Jason: Your guitars are vaporous and intangible wisps of gossamer soundwaves giving this album exactly the conduit it needed to carry the truth contained therein. Thank you for making the time to be a part of this project. Thank you for the feedback and suggestions, the album art and photography, the videos and graphic design. Thank you, sweet Joanna, for always supporting this venture and Bailey for your help with the photos! 

Alec Ness: You took years of our home-studio work and in just days, transformed it into a professional, polished, cohesive story that perfectly communicates everything I wanted it to say. You absolutely nailed it and it was a pleasure working with you! Thank you, Jeff Deyo, for the referral and all the encouragement and professional feedback along the way. 

Jordyn: A zealous, uninhibited fire burns in your heart to defend the weak, powerless and misunderstood. May God use your words, actions and even your art to reach those so often overlooked. As a passionate consumer of diverse styles of music, I value the feedback and input you gave me on everything from song titles to album cover design to helping me define my genre. 

Elijah: You have a passionate heart for people from all walks of life that I know God will use in ways you have yet to even imagine! The way you invest your time and energy into each of those diverse relationships reminds me so much of Poppy! I see him in you every day. Being able to sing harmonies with you on “Cave” will always be one my favorite memories from the recording of this album. 

Gideon: You have an innocence and sensitivity to God’s voice that is rare for your age and in these times we live in. May you never lose your desire to follow Jesus in simple, everyday decisions. You absolutely killed it with the drums on “Vigilance” and you helped me find just the right groove for “Seeds”. Thank you for stepping outside your comfort zone to play alongside me at live shows and throwing your entire self into practicing and perfecting whatever it is your put your hand to. As a fellow artist, you inspire me! 

Mom: It is from you that I inherited both creativity and the courage to create. You set the example all my life of seeing a project and no matter how hard, doing the research, and getting the thing done! You have always nudged me gently in the direction I was bent, even when I was unsure of myself, even when I was “scared I would have to write my name on the board’, you have always assured me that I could do it. You raised me to start every day with God’s word and to talk to God about everything. It was from you that I memorized my first Bible verse because you turned it into a song. It was you who drove me across town, week after week for piano lessons, often waiting in a hot car while I practiced. It’s you who helped me finish that verse in Defender and it’s you who prays for me through every live performance; you always have. 

Jacob: Watching you take on the tremendous mantel of leadership that you did so soon after losing our Dad has inspired and challenged me to also step into new, unknown territory, even while walking through unspeakable pain. You’ve never been afraid to try new things and execute them in extravagant ways. You don’t let fear of failure stop you, knowing when to delegate to others and when to ask for help from the elders that God blesses us with. What better example could I look to when I decided to take on this project! 

Elijah (Symytry): A joyful, authentic lover of God and people. Your feedback and encouragement throughout this entire project has consistently been exactly what I needed to hear. On Mondays when I was struggling my way through production and your name would pop up on my phone screen, it was always just the “interruption” I needed to get through the rest of the session. Everything about you inspires me and you will always make me laugh harder than anyone! 

Hannah (Channah Roseann) You literally hand-wrote for me a step by step guide to producing my first album. The short season you spent in our home, using my recording equipment and producing your own music inspired me to do all of this! I was absolutely convinced back then that I could never do what you did, but here we are! Thank you for being the female studio engineer trailblazer and courageous truth-teller in my life! 

Erika: You ask the most thought-provoking questions, and you truly listen to the heart of a person as they answer. You are the big sister I never knew I needed and I am so grateful God brought you and Stevie into this big, crazy family! 

Mom and Dad Santovi and all my beautiful in-laws and “outlaws”: I am so honored to have been grafted into such an unconditionally-loving and supportive family! I’m grateful that you attend my shows, listen to and share my music and invest in the lives of our kids through friendship with their cousins, movie or bonfire nights and every unique quality you each bring to this village we call family! 

Pastor Derrick Ross: Thank you for leading our congregation with an exquisite balance of truth and love and thank you for trusting me to turn your sermon notes into “Serpent”; powerful words that will always be relevant! Dana, thank you for being a trusted listener and for giving a voice to victims of injustice. 

Louis Clemente: Thank you for making time to lend your epic voice to “Serpent”. I knew from the start that we needed your voice on this album. Cat, I’ve always struggled to describe my sound but you did it in such a lyrical, beautiful way and let me borrow your poetic descriptions in all the places artists are required to do so; for this I thank you. 

Mi Familia Cuba: From a music business standpoint, it made NO sense to leave the country and spend six weeks preparing to do so right as I was preparing to release this album. But God knew the perspective shift I needed before stepping into this new season with music. God knew Pete and I needed 14 new brothers and sisters with whom we were able to forge bonds that will carry into eternity! Every one of you helped me see my music, even my oldest songs as something to be treasured, never despised, but shared with everyone. You each brought to that trip and into my life a beautiful example of humility, collaboration, support, unity and walking humbly in the insight, power and authority given to us by The Holy Spirit! Gloria a Dios para siempre!!! 

To those who continually lift me up with your life-giving words and prayers, I am forever grateful. You are the ones who like and share all my posts, show up at gigs or take a moment out of your day to message me with encouraging words. I know for certain that if I begin to list you all by name, I will accidentally forget to mention someone and forever regret doing so.  Instead, please know that when I thank you in person or in a message, I am grateful beyond words to have you in my corner. Please know that I felt your prayers when I wanted to give up and I continue to feel them even now. May God give you all His richest blessings! 

Dad: As lovely and optimistic as I want to make this sound, the truth is, I just wish you could’ve been here to celebrate this with us. I know you’re the loudest one in that Cloud of Witnesses and that you’re “so stinkin proud” of me. You made sure I always knew you were proud and how much you loved me but after you died, I dove so deeply into work on this album as a way to process losing you that sometimes I let the work itself shield me from actually feeling the loss. Now, as I write in silence, it’s washing over me in waves that pull me out into the deep. I know I’ll see you again but sometimes the veil between heaven and earth feels too dark to bear. I want to look into your actual eyes that were starting to make that older-black-man transition to bluish/grey and I want to hear your actual voice telling me every detail you love about each song. I want to feel your actual arms around me as you pull me into a hug and scratch my face with your beard and say, “I’m proud of you kiddo!” Because you saw this in me decades before I ever thought it possible! When we were kids, you would gather us all together at bedtime and create epic stories in which we each had a starring role. In those exciting, imaginary adventures that took place all around the globe, no matter how spread out our family was from one another, we always stayed in touch; we always found a way to collaborate, and we each stepped in somehow, like a hero to support the others. Turns out, those were not mere stories, they were prophecies. Those messages of harmony, unity, togetherness, family and support that you were so famous for preaching in communities across this country; you and mom taught it first to us. Together, you practiced what you preached, and that message lives on in your family every day; I felt it throughout this entire project, while working on it with Erik and when the entire family joined me on “Cave”. May I always see and treat people like you did Dad; as made in the image of God and capable of more than they could ever imagine!