Blue Tree "Reflects" on New Record

"This record is about transition," Lawson says of the new Blue Tree album. "It represents all the changes that have happened to me and the band since I moved back to Boston over a year and half ago." Currently, Blue Tree is putting the finishing touches on the new record titled "Reflections" and the release date is set for October of 2002.

"We recently finished mixing the record with our engineer and co-producer Brian Brown at Fort Apache in Cambridge, Massachusetts," said Lawson. "I'm really pleased with how the record sounds. Brian has done an awesome job translating the ideas I had in my head onto tape." While things have come together in the studio over the last several months, the beginning of the recording project was anything but smooth.

Last summer, before going into the studio, bassist Josh Tobin left the band. Shortly after deciding to continue on with the recording project as a trio with drummer Dave DeSimone (Winterboy) and guitarist Mike Leavey (Splendid Nobodies), Lawson got word that his father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and quickly returned home to Florida. His father died a few days after he returned and Lawson spent much of the rest of 2001 in Florida with his family. He did manage to return to Boston in the fall long enough for the band to record a three-song demo at Fort Apache, which marked the beginning of the new record.

"The end of last year was certainly a crazy time for me personally," he remembers. "I had to put things on hold for a while in order to help out back home. While at times it was frustrating not being in a position to work on the record sooner, I think in the end it actually helped. Being back home gave me more time to work on the songs, including writing some new ones." After returning to Boston in January, Blue Tree began recording the album in February. Judging from the studio mixes, the sound has expanded significantly compared to the original demo CD "After the Fall" that was released in September 2000.