I'm so glad that Volume 3 of the Commitments & Cover Songs series has finally been released - the journey to getting here from when I first started working on this project (in November 2022) has been quite a wild ride, but the end result is something far better than I could've made last year. To be clear, I haven't been working on this project consistently for ten months straight; most of what you're hearing was recorded in September 2023, including a total re-recording of everything that I tracked back in 2022. But I've been learning a lot about production and home recording in recent months, with a growth in my skill set and my tool kit that should be audibly evident to everyone who listened to the first two volumes. And hopefully there will be even more growth when I release Volume 4 (fingers crossed) this December!

If you're unaware, the point of releasing C&C every December is because the series started out as a surprise birthday gift for my wife Paige. With Vol. 2, the series evolved into a mixture of surprise recordings for her along with recording opportunities for her to participate in. With Vol. 3, the scope evolves even further to include an original song that Paige wrote; this volume also expands the definition of the titular "commitments," as two of the songs here were recorded as the fulfillment of commitments that I'd made to two of my friends: "Second Place Victory" for Adam and "They Don't Know What We Know" for Craig. That said, the lyrics of these songs make for excellent and surprisingly cohesive inclusions here!

The most obvious influence on this collection is the album After Laughter by Paramore, with three contributions to this ten-song set. (Ironically, this coincides exactly with Volume 2 and New Stage by Jesse McCartney - we'd planned to record three songs for that volume, though we only finished recording two of them.) Paramore is probably Paige's favorite band of all time, and After Laughter is in the top ten (maybe even top five!) of albums Paige and I have listened together most frequently throughout our relationship. It's a special set of songs, and I had a really great time arranging my stylized cover of "Hard Times," arranging Paige's beautifully faithful cover of "26," and writing my lyrics for "Garages," the cheeky, respectful parody of "Grudges" about buying our first home. (Side note: Massive shout-out to Paige for her amazing performance on "26." There's a lot of trickery and studio magic that's possible within recording, but I want everyone to know that her vocals on "26" are one single take, uninterrupted and unedited!)

As teased by the cover art for Volume 3 (as always, painted by Paige), this set is loosely themed around buying our first home together, which was the biggest thing that happened to us in 2022 (the year that this volume was supposed to release). This thematic touchstone is where I got the idea to include bonus tracks for the work-in-progress "rock demos" that I've been teasing out with two of the songs from last year's Questions at Thirty, "What's next?" and "When are you gonna have kids?" Included as well are the songs "Time" and "What It Takes" from the upcoming deluxe edition re-release of Accidental Days (out October 27, 2023), with will feature alternate masters of the original ten songs, two new singles, four acoustic b-sides, four different versions of album songs, and ten full-length commentary tracks.

"HEY CHASE, I THOUGHT YOU GAVE AWAY YOUR MUSIC FOR FREE? AND NOW YOU'RE CHARGING MONEY FOR A ~COVERS~ ALBUM? WHAT GIVES?!" Thank you for asking, and you're right - nearly all of my music here on Bandcamp is available for free (or pay-what-you-want), including Volumes 1 and 2 of the Commitments & Cover Songs series. At the time, when I released those volumes in 2020 and '21, I was working under the assumption that, by giving away the cover songs for free on a service that doesn't charge for streams or pay streaming royalties, I was doing everything the legally correct way. That may or may not have been true at the time (the details are fuzzy and confusing), but the Music Modernization Act passed by Congress in 2018 had some big changes go into effect into 2021, including the legality of releasing cover songs. In 2022, Bandcamp started cracking down on this, so starting with Volume 3 (and moving forward), I am making sure to secure the mechanical licenses that allow me to sell and distribute these cover songs. However, when you secure these mechanical licenses, you have to estimate the amount of copies you plan to sell and pre-pay those royalties; therefore, giving away this album for free would run the risk of me blowing past the amount of copies that I've paid for. So in some ways, the price tag on this album is functioning as a deterrent to keep too many people from downloading it; meanwhile, the four bonus tracks function as a massive "thank you" for the people who do choose to buy this. I intentionally selected $4 as the price for Volume 3 (and for future volumes) not in order to profit but rather to simply recoup the unexpected costs of acquiring the mechanical licenses for the cover songs. (And I'm committing to including four worthwhile bonus tracks on future volumes, to make sure that the price tag is always more than worth it.) But there is a hack! Each individual track is still available for free/pay-what-you-want. So if you don't want to buy the album but have a song (or multiple songs) that you would like to download and own, you can do so one at a time by clicking on the name of the songs you wish to buy. It's a little laborious, but it will help me out in the long run. Thank you for taking the time to read this explanation!