JP replied to Brian’s letter on his Facebook. JP – Just let me know if you don’t want this posted here.

My response to Brian’s open letter to Shizit fans
2/4/2010 at 7:39am

I want to thank Brian for writing his open letter. I wish I had seen it when it was first posted, but I only read for the first time last night. I found Brian’s letter pretty compelling and I would like to state that I think it was wrong of me to use the name “The Shizit”. Brian, I’m sorry. Sincerely.

I haven’t changed my story, I’ve been straight up about why I released the record under that name. But that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do. I never had commercial intentions – I’ve been releasing free music for all my projects well before this last free record. It wasn’t an attempt to avoid liability. A few years ago I found that trying to exploit music for money was making me really unhappy. I needed to change my relationship with music. I came to terms with the fact that making music has always been primarily a tool for figuring myself out. Rabbit Junk surpassed The Shizit in commercial success a long time ago – but it didn’t make me happy. With albums being distributed by a major label and actual pay checks coming in from RJ sales, it really dawned on me that this wasn’t what I wanted. I still wanted to make music, but I wanted to be free to make what ever the hell I wanted, for my own reasons – not to sell records. When I started putting out free tracks, I found the peace I was looking for. Music is a beautiful thing, easily ruined by the pressure to be profitable. Music will always be a part of my life, I will always make new tracks, but I happily gave up any ambitions in the entertainment industry a long time ago. It was never me. I’ve met the sort of people that can navigate that world – I am very different from them. That realization was hard to swallow but eventually it liberated me.

So why release under “The Shizit” and cause all this strife? Well I think it was a bad idea, and again I’m sorry. You’re wrong though, if you had talked to me I would have listened. But the one or two times you have e-mailed me in the past you haven’t so much talked to me as talk down to me. Words like “authorized” and demanding compliance with this or that never rubs anybody the right way. I’m willing to listen, but not be ordered. I’m sure you feel the same way.

My intentions: I wasn’t moving on. Year after year I was still angry. It was ridiculous.7, 8 years later I could get all fired up over what happened. I started to ask myself what the hell I needed to do to close the book on this thing. I still felt hurt. On tour in the summer of ’09, the subject came up in the van and I thought that maybe I could get some peace if I released another album under The Shizit and told my story. I thought it would have a cathartic effect. Maybe I thought I was taking back something I had given away or let go. Anger fueled the recording and the conviction of the release. And I let my anger, I let it, tell me this was the right thing to do. I take full responsibility here, I’m not passing this off as the inevitable result of hurt feelings and being angry. I had lots of options. I chose this path, and it was a trespass.

The release didn’t have much cathartic effect. I’m proud of the way it sounds – I think it’s the most aggressive thing I’ve ever done. But life felt much the same after the recording as it had before it. Then the C&D letters hit and stress hit the roof. Deciding to let the name go finally relieved the burden I had been carrying around with me. The Shizit was two people, regardless of who wrote what. It was a time and a feeling that will never happen again. It was the tear gas at WTO, Fight Club, Chomsky, youth, naivete…

So I’ve moved on. Finally. It was a long road. I decided on “The Named” as the handle for the tracks I recorded in summer of ’09. They will continue to be free and future releases will be free as well (proceeds from any merch will be donated to wikileaks.org, as I’ve stated prior to this). I have a few interviews lined up and I will be stating that my use of The Shizit was the wrong thing to do. Hopefully the enmity between Brian and I can finally rest in peace with The Shizit.

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