Temporary Hero to Release BLASPHEMY. Album, 4/13

Mix together mathematics, medicine, and music and you get... an album? Why not?

Temporary Hero is born out of the cliched story of loving music with influences ranging from Columbia records based Aretha Franklin to how to destroy angels and Apparat to the non-cliched story of a journey from a completely non-musical background into becoming a DIY artist/photographer/writer/physician/author/father/activist/human. Blasphemous? Not in the least.

This guy took his passion for expressing the mind's eye and ear and made an aural composition that is bleeds intelligence, savvy, and a love for all things melodic. And all driven by the desire to create.

So why is the album called "Blasphemy."?

From the artist himself: "It is a bit tongue-in-cheek and at the same time a direct warning for the themes in the album. It is quite ridiculous or blasphemous that a guy without training in the arts can make and distribute his art with his head held high. But why not? What is the necessity of formal training in the arts if one has an absolute burning passion to create and express artistically? What is the value in that? I have always been visual - even became fluent in sign language for the deaf along the way. And have been able to create in vast array of mediums: film, print, writing, gouache... And while I may never be a decorated art hero, I darn well enjoy being artistic."

And as far as the blasphemous themes IN the album? "I wrote from my experience, really. As a man who struggled finding his footing, finding the right person to love, the right soul to love, his place in society. I hid for many, many years behind the expectations others had OF ME. I overcame the social anxiety of being ridiculed and bullied and excluded. And writing and recording this record is a compendium of those feelings, those experiences:

HATE SUX_
Yes, the underscore IS part of the title. Hate Sux_ was the next to last "last-minute" addition to the album. I wanted to record a song that was catchy, poppy even, but had a deeper pain in it. You will find this in most of my songs... pain and honesty but with a hook. I wanted in this song AND video to express the horrors of domestic abuse, bullying, discrimination, social injustices. I collaborated with Anthony Pietromonaco of Manifest Films in Los Angeles to collect images that evoked the themes in the song to create a video.

DESTROYED.
"I have fallen from grace, destroyed my life in this place." This song sums up the disgrace I felt for so many years knowing that I didn't fit the mold of being the perfect person I thought I was supposed to be. And I am pleading for someone to save me. There are definitely some religious undertones here as well. Plus this is my first experiment with some dubstep influences.

SAVIN' UP 2 BE A ROCK + ROLL STAR
For my whole life, I would get naysayers TELLING me ... you can't expect to do this, or do that. That applies to music as well. Sure, it is a very competitive arena but it DEPENDS upon WHY one "does" music. If the goal is to become the best selling act of 2013... great goal, but difficult. If it is to create and share... still a great goal and so much less risk of disappointment. Anyone can do anything he wants. We are human. We can learn to do anything. We may not be experts at everything, but we can sure darn well try.

I MIGHT HAVE BROKEN UR HEART
An ode to those who wouldn't pay me the time of day, who refused me and who now wish they were with me. But, the bottom line is, even with that regret and pain that I had, it is a known fact neither of us would be happy today if things had gone in a different direction.

OVERDRIVE
Abuse in any form is wrong. Period.

SWAY [PRETTY BOY]
This song will cause some controversy depending upon who misinterprets the lyrics. Am I saying it is a choice or not? Figure it out. And wait until you see the triply video that is coming along for this single.

OUR HISTORIES WILL UNVEIL OUR SCARS AND OUR FUTURES WILL REVEAL OUR HEARTS
An quirky but very deep, introspective interlude. Weird.

LOST GOLD (PT. 1 & 2)
I record vocals in one and only one session. I like to capture the rawness and vulnerability of singing a song for the first time. If it doesn't work, then I re-write the whole song and apply the lyrics again. Lost Gold is one of my favorite songs. The problem is that after my first take I accidentally erased the master vocal files. So I could only master this track from the mixdown. While I will never be a champagne-glass-shattering vocalist, this is one of my favorite recordings, lost or not.Thematically, this is similar to I MIGHT HAVE BROKEN UR HEART.

I'M NOT GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Though most of this album is autobiographical, I have not committed ANY crimes. Ever. (Except for a parking ticket here and there.) But this song is a very angry reaction to a situation I cannot publicly comment on at this time. Social injustice at its worst and at the expense of many innocent lives.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
This is the oldest song on the album. Definitely not my most accessible work, yet it resonates in its weirdness. What the heck AM I singing about in this, anyway?

BLUE EYES
The antagonist in this song is NOT a person. It is society.

DYSTOPIAN BICYCLE
Here I am trying (perhaps too hard) to show that I have an odd streak in my limbic system. This song fits in along with PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION and OUR HISTORIES... in being less accessible but poetically justifiable for its inclusion on this project. Around the same time as recording this, I recorded 7 other tracks in this vein for an upcoming collection of EPs.

FAITH IN THE DARK
A producer whom I admire immensely heard this and called it my "magnum opus," my "Gossip moment," my "Madonna moment." Hilarious, but perhaps true. I did want to evoke a Madonna meets Depeche Mode vibe on this track. I think the theme is pretty obvious.

ASHAMED
This was the LAST track added at the very LAST minute. I recorded a version of this song in the vein of HATE SUX_ but it just wasn't working well. I changed the melody around and inspired immensely by the Freemasons, made it into a butt-shaking dance track. In fact, as much as I love this genre, I purposely didn't want every song to be a mainstream dance track. After all, remixes are inevitable (and, as a matter of fact, already commissioned for many of the tracks on this album). But this song, along with FAITH IN THE DARK, completely round out the theme and bring some resolution to the protagonist. "Life is love and love is life and being me is all I can be."

Blasphemy. will be released via Object Permanence on April 13, 2013. For more about Temporary Hero, visit:

www.youtube.com/iamtemporaryhero
http://twitter.com/temporary_hero
http://soundcloud.com/temporary-hero
http://temporaryhero.bandcamp.com/
http://iamtemporaryhero.tumblr.com

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