BARRHEAD - Barrhead-area singer, songwriter and children's author Justin Wiesinger went backwards in time to find the inspiration and material for his second album, Stuck In Your Head.
The artist officially launched the self-published album on Nov. 26 at a launch party and concert at Barrhead's Roxy Theatre. The event also included the debut of Wiesinger's wife, Chelsey's short film Unforgoatable.
In addition to being a filmmaker and a children's author, Chelsey is also a member of Wiesinger's band.
In addition to Chelsey, Stuck In Your Head also features guest musicians Jessa Sky, Tea G, Riwo, Jusjron and Aldous Huxley.
Wiesinger started working on the album in 2021, writing the start of a few songs as he was prepared to release his first album, Wonderlove, in the spring of 2022.
However, most of the work, including a crowdfunding campaign, began in earnest late in 2022, with a crowdfunding campaign.
"Without those donors contributing over $8,000, I am not sure the album would have come to fruition," he said. "You can have the idea, the songs and the music and not be able to go forward. Recording doesn't come cheap, nor does all the marketing, printing and everything else involved."
Wiesinger said by February of last year, he had totally exhausted his budget and only completed about 70 per cent of the album. If the crowdfunding campaign and the presale of albums had not gone well, Stuck In Your Head would have likely remained stuck in his head.
A little over a month later, buoyed by not only the funding needed but also the confidence and energy, Wiesinger finished writing and recording the remaining four songs, not including a bonus track, Party Bus, for the Spotify album.
To gain momentum for the album's eventual release, Wiesinger has been dropping singles again via Spotify and also created a video of Party Bus with the help of about 20 youths enrolled in the Town of Barrhead's parks and recreation department summer program.
"The album has been very well received," he said. "The first song we dropped [in November 2022] has been streamed more than half a million times on Spotify."
As for the album's theme, Wiesinger said it is about mental health and can almost be considered a prequel to Wonderlove.
In his early 20s, for about three or four years, Wiesinger had some mental health struggles to the point where it was a significant contributing factor to a motor vehicle accident where he was seriously injured. Following the incident, Wiesinger was hospitalized on multiple occasions due to his mental health struggles, crediting music and, more specifically, songwriting, many of which would become the basis for Wonderlove that he was able to turn his life around.
"If I had planned it better, I would have made Wonderlove my second album," he said.
That is because Wiesinger said that for the new album, he went back in time and used some of the songs he wrote while he was going through that rough period as a base.
"I wrote them [the initial songs] when I was in a very different head space," he said. "I wanted to empathize with people going through tough times with their struggles and journeys and meet them where they are because it can be hard to relate to those doing well."
On the other side, Wiesinger said, Stuck In Your Head is meant to be a "double entendre" as people often keep repeating negative thoughts about themselves in their heads.
"So I wanted to write a really catchy album, so instead of having that negative thought reoccurring, you can have a positive repeating to help people balance and find that peace and clarity to get themselves out of that negative feedback loop that so easy to find yourself in," he said.
As for the immediate future, Wiesinger said he is going to take a break from working towards releasing another album, focusing instead on strengthening his brand and working with youth.
He added that when he started to make his own music, he believed the path to success was to be original, so he concentrated solely on writing and performing original material.
But now that he has a good backlog of original material, Wiesinger said he is no longer worried and will start integrating "throwback songs" into his shows.
"We have a few coming-of-age songs like Dancing Queen, All-Star and the Middle by Jimmy Eat World that I perform in the Wiesinger Band version if really fun," he said.
Wiesinger added that one of his goals or dreams is to host a youth conference to inspire and nurture their talents in the arts.
"Somewhere where young people can hear inspiring stories about how they started and were able to follow their dreams," he said. "If I had something like that, I might have started to pursue music earlier, and I just want to create those 'ah-ha' moments as possible so that they don't feel hopelessly stuck."
The album is available through Wiesinger's website (wiesingermusic.com) and can also be found on music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
