The tragic story of Eril Andrade in “The Middlemen” is extremely powerful. It is heartbreaking to learn of people like him who are told lies about how much money they will be earning, and are forced to essentially work as slaves in conditions that sometimes lead to death. At every turn, these workers’ lives get harder and harder, and in the end, all they can hope for is to return home to their families alive. But what is so devastating is that the abuses continue, and no one seems to be held accountable. The legal loopholes and the government’s willingness to overlook corruption because they don’t want to deal with the problems leave me feeling rather helpless and pessimistic.

I want to use my music to tell the stories that Ian writes about in my own way. By incorporating quotations from the book, I hope that listeners will want to learn more about the source material of these quotations, which in turn will enhance their experience of the music by making it more meaningful and real.

As always with my music, I want to tell these stories by capturing key emotions that resonate throughout the book. In The Outlaw Ocean, the emotions that stick with me the most are those of loneliness and bleakness, which can be found in the stories of men spending their lives at sea, either by choice or not. These people seem to experience an overwhelming sense of disconnect.

w00ds