skydiving ep (2024)

Track Listing

1. Some Design
2. Follow The Evidence
3. Skydiving

Audio

Credits

Michael Johnson – vocals, guitars, pianos, organs, percussion, bass guitars, sound effects, string arrangements, choral arrangements
Anthony Georgis - drums, percussion
Anna Lande - backing vocals on “Some Design”
The Reclinerland Symphony Orchestra - violins, violas, cellos, double basses
The Reclinerland Holy Roller Baptist Choir - backing vocals on “Some Design”

Recorded and mixed by Michael Johnson between 2022 and 2023 at Reclinerland HQ in Paris, France. Mastered by Jarkko Heiniö. Cover art by Michael Johnson.

All songs: words, music, arrangements by Michael Johnson
© 2022 - 2024, Zubsongs, Ltd.

The Story Behind the EP

The Skydiving EP began as a collaboration between Scott Garred of Super XX Man and I. We conceived the idea initially as a Christmas album, with Scott, a devout Christian, recording the religious Christmas songs, and me, a die-hard atheist, recording the secular ones. This idea blossomed into a larger idea, about a Christian and an atheist having a sort of “dialog in song.” Scott and I decided to write some songs about god and not god and put them together onto an album side by side. The idea was to play on each other’s songs and create a rich tapestry that explored the idea of religion and non-religion. I was wholeheartedly excited about the project.

I had already written “Follow the Evidence” and “Some Design” a couple of years before, so I stayed at Scott’s place in San Francisco in the summer of 2021 to write and record some more songs. We had a great time together recording and working out the songs over a long weekend. I wrote the song “Skydiving” at Scott’s house one night after coming up with a piano riff and making a decision to go to bed and have the song done by the morning. Scott’s songs were really good, and he put together a fantastic cover version of “On The Wet Streets of Seville” from Parks & Recreation’s Every Road I Travel album. His version was beautiful and earnest, with his characteristic breezy, yet spot on, playing style and his rich singing voice. Gone was the irony of the Parks & Recreation version, and I mean that in the best possible way. Scott’s contributions to the album were excellent. As always, his songs were heartfelt and earnest, with his skills as a lyricist and multi-instrumentalist on full display. It was great to record and play with Scott. You can find rough mixes of the unfinished album below to see what I mean about Scott’s songs.

After I went back to Paris, however, the recording kind of got delayed. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Scott became busy with his 50-song birthday cover album, which was brilliant, and I got accepted to the Film Scoring Academy of Europe’s online film and video game scoring program, which kept me busy during most of 2023.

But as time wore on, I felt a growing sense of frustration over the current atrocities in the world being perpetrated in the name of an imaginary god; the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs Wade, stripping women’s rights in America; the beheading of Simon Pati by a Muslim student for the crime of showing a picture of Muhammed; the Islamic outlawing of homosexuality (not gay marriage, mind you, but just being homosexual) in Indonesia; the whole NXIVM thing, the religious right trying to take over the U.S.,…the list goes on and on. Also some of the things I heard as a helpline volunteer for the Recovering From Religion Foundation absolutely broke my heart.

And so I felt, and have been feeling, a dire sense of urgency to get these songs out into the world, especially now, given the religious war happening in the Middle East. I felt that I had something pointed and specific to scream at the top of my lungs, so I took my songs, rerecorded them, mixed them myself, and the lovely Jarkko Heiniö agreed to master them.

The Skydiving EP is my middle finger to religion and woo in all its forms, progressive or otherwise. Religion must end. We need to stop believing in nonsense for no good reason just because it gives people a false sense of comfort and hope. We need to stop abusing children and murdering each other because of false beliefs. We need to stop embracing the peer pressure and warm fuzzies that go along with comforting lies and embrace the wonders of reality. After all, we can have all the good stuff without the lies, abuse, and violence. Let these songs be the soundtrack to the human race’s abandoning of false beliefs and embracing secularism, humanism, science, and reason.

the unfinished album

In case you’re curious, and because I still like the idea of a Christian and an atheist making an album together, but particularly because I like hearing Scott’s voice and my voice on the same album, here are the unfinished rough mixes for the album Scott and I were making, but never finished. Scott played guitars, keyboards, drums and vocals. He also did the recording and engineering. I played guitars, pianos, keyboards, and wrote the string and horn arrangements (which are all built around variations of the tune “Ave Maria”). For the most part, The person singing is the person who wrote the song, with the exception of “Man Made God”— which started out as a loose bass groove from Scott that I then wrote some spoken-word lyrics over in the style of R.E.M.’s “Belong”—and “On The Wet Streets of Seville” which is Scott’s cover version of a Parks & Recreation song.

This EP is dedicated to Simon Pati, murdered by the parties of god for promoting critical thinking.