Album Notes

Lauded by many Chicago music personalities as the next big thing to his modern folk/rock music, Jackson Combs is a 24-year-old Chicago-based singer-songwriter living in and impacting the Chicago music scene.

\"For a day a might be taking your love,
For tomorrow child my planes taking off
Been living in spirits and suitcases for way to long
And flocks of birds they bounce from trees
And the wind slows down to stop the breeze
And you’re wearing your secrets like a blanket in the night
Angry, beautiful, shameless, polite”

The Album Features:

Gregory Jackson Combs: Vocals, Piano, Guitar, Organ, Harp
Jeff Brown: Vocals, Guitars
Jason Petros: Bass
Christine Knodle: Violin, Vocals
Chad Alger: Drums


Jackson Combs on his new release “The Hardest Parts”:

\"So I took a sort of break from it all. A year ago, I\'d released “Tales” with the Apartments and seen some success. After living through the most creative and artistic moments, and in the midst economically rough times, and the winter rolled in, I saw some disinterest and difficulty playing the music I wanted to and in the same time finding an audience in a scene I felt had no room for a band like mine, and I was getting sick of the scene. It was all in itself, combined with the cold of winter, frustrating. I for a time viewed my sensitive style and love for those things considered nostalgic as the enemy. Songs became filler. Shitty music blasted on the radio and in bars where I had spent many nights. No one was wrong. No one was right. There was no one to blame. I played less shows, I simplified my life, quit my job at a desk. I took a humble job working in a restaurant. Slept in the morning, worked at night. Paid my rent, kept to myself. Nursed a healthy case of overnight insomnia for the early half of the year. And that\'s how it went for a time. I enjoyed it for a while. Through it all I still continued to write both words and music. And the urge seemed to visit me mostly during my hours of endless insomnia somewhere floating between the endless night and the restless morning. I soon found myself telling stories and crafting melodies within the endless possibilities and limitations of my lab top and the recording space that rested underneath the loft where I slept. I\'d never tried this before. Hell, I had not tried to record by myself since at least two years ago, and back then I was working with other bands. I started to write and record ideas and melodies. And as time went on, melodies became songs; Song became real live Humor, hope and growth among a simple beauty that I hadn\'t been able to capture with my previous musical works. Those roughed edges of life became refined, The Sleeplessness, the dreamland, somewhere between being awake and being in a dream became real. The last bits were filled in by Jeff, Jason, Chad and Christine, and what they heard and what they added somehow completed it and brought is finally to life, and in the process the final product made me step back and see it all for what it had been, was and could be.

I love all these songs. They lack any intentions other than for my own Sanity. They exist simply because I needed them when I put the words to actual music. I brought the record to my good friend a little bit before I was done, she liked it, but was worried that it was a bit to melancholy. But in reality it was because they were discovered during and after moments of reflection, revelation, happiness, disappointment, and most of all hope. Songs for the sake of songs, Music for the sake of music, hope for the sake of everything human. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening and God Bless.”

-Jackson Combs