BPK happened after Jerrod’s Dream succumbed to the difficulties we faced in trying to figure out how in the world to take that project live – it was just too big in some ways and sourcing the right musicians had proved overwhelming.

I’d been talking with my college pal Paul McDonald about doing something – he had done cover bands all through high school and early college and was kind-of done with that whole scene, but he had solid bass and better keyboard chops and the two of us were heavy into the 80s electro-pop scene, and bands like OMD, Depeche Mode and Ultravox were at the top of our list. We decided to see what we could come up with and ended up connecting with Bernadette Quist who’s repertoire leaned somewhere between traditional pop and old-school jazz standards (thus the cover of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” that I not-so-secretly just adore).

We had a blast putting these together, and was the first time I had been involved in a project with multiple writers. It was cool – we played off each other really well, and I wish I had more examples. Limits of technology and storage and an accidental recording over a master tape (back in the old days, kids, we didn’t have unlimited storage. Ha!) left only a few examples of the sound.

It’s definitely rough around most edges, and I still had a million years to go before I really understood what I was doing. All that said, it was a really good return to making music with friends, and even though it didn’t last very long at all it put the bug in my head in a bad way and in no indirect way led to the formation of “Fighting Inertia” and then “Collins Gate“.