“Young Novalis” sounds like the name of a band I’d listen to at least once just because they have a cool name. As it so happens, first-name Young is a singer-songwriter from Westminster, Maryland who just happens to have a really cool name.

Fortunately, Young also writes great songs. When he and I began talking about making a record together in 2014, he sent me 20 or so completely written songs. For an indie musician, this is pretty rare. I remember listening through them and after each song thinking — “This song needs to be on the record”. That’s even more rare.

But we weren’t setting out to make 2 full-length records. We were making a 6-song EP, so the whittling processed commenced. 20 songs became 12, 12 became 8 and 8 became the final 6.

I enlisted the genius of Ben Shive [Colony House, Dave Barnes] to track keys and some synth. I also brought on the insanely gifted Nathan Dugger, one of Drew Holcomb’s “Neighbors”, to record electric guitar and lap steel. As usual, they both exceeded expectation.

One of the things I love about Nate is that he doesn’t roll up with a couple guitars, a pedalboard and an amp (as you can see above). He brings everything — like all of his guitars and all of his pedals, which are mostly in an old suitcase because they couldn’t possibly coexist on an already-crowded pedalboard. We had a tool for everything, which is always so inspiring.

Young's new EP, entitled Feet That Found A Road is available now. My sincere thanks to Young for trusting me to journey with him in the making of this project.