Empty Places was written during the COVID epidemic while I was living in Thailand. At one point, the U.S. embassy advised me to leave immediately or risk being unable to return home for an indefinite period. I chose to stay — a decision that meant I could not leave the country for more than two years. For many months, I wasn’t even allowed to leave my house.
With the help of my producer Gary Crause, I turned that isolation into music. I wrote and recorded an entire album without ever leaving my studio, trying to capture how the pandemic had changed our lives and freedoms.
When the government finally lifted the restrictions, I hired a motorcycle taxi and rode around the city. What I saw inspired the name of the album — everywhere I went, the streets were completely deserted. I took pictures of those empty places, a haunting reminder of how the world had come to a standstill.
That experience became Empty Places — an album about loss, resilience, and the strange silence of a world in lockdown.
