here is the story, of “my head is empty” and "nothing is real.
As well as, how i decided on the name” my head is empty”

this project started with the release of "nothing is real" Aug 18, 2018. at this time, my best friend Jacob Skowronski was shot dead in his home, by a drug dealer. i had phoned him for days, and it was only later did his parents come to check on him, only to find him dead for days in a pool of his own blood. Jacob was like a brother to me.
before this, i was kicked out of my house. my family at the time didn't like my lifestyle, my "pipe dream" to become the worlds greatest musician, i wanted to create a new genre of music. sort of like Luffy, from one piece, in the endless pursuit to become the worlds greatest pirate, or at least that's what i told myself at the time. anyways, when i met Jacob, he was the only person who truly believed in me, and didn't think anything i said was insane. i'll never forget the true real joy in his eyes when i showed him a new song. he gave me the confidence i never got from my family. it was only later, after my first gig with a song in a Tv show (payday, on the viceland tv channel), that my family ever came around and began to show an inkling of belief in me.
before my father and i would argue, and yell, and even physically fought once.

i’ll never forget the day he looked me in the eyes and told me all my dreams, were pipe dreams, asking me if i knew what the phrase, "delusions of grandeur" meant. i didn't. he told me that the grand life i had imagined for myself, becoming a great artist was just a dream, and he used to have one like it, to become a famous painter, and started a family instead and gave up on his dreams. I think he either didn’t want to see me do something great, when he had given up, or perhaps as his kid, he thought i was destined to give up as he did. while i used to hate him, i have grown a lot. I understand that we are all a product of our environment, and our generation, so i try to allow this pass in my mind, so i can forgive these wounds, and find closure.
but i'll never forget the way he insisted i give it all up, as he did. i didn't. in fact, i used those words he etched into my heart later in a song. he hated me for many reasons.

since they kicked me out for my "insane beliefs", my sister always lying to my parents to get me in trouble, and my inability to hold down a job, i was always out getting into trouble with the local gang of delinquents, as they were the only people i could find a roof over my head with.
but oh how i just craved to be at home. i couldn't stay home, because when i would try to make music, my sister would get so mad at me to turn it off, thinking it was annoying. it did sound terrible i will admit, but i was only starting out. she would call my father and make up lies, that i was yelling at her, so he would come home and threaten me, fight with me. they never believed me once, since she was older, it was always her word over mine.
i spent less and less time and home, always out with the bad crowd. i went along with anything they wanted to do, so i could always have somewhere to go, scrounging whatever spare change i could find to give them for gas money, to pick me up, take me somewhere to skate, spending years hunched over with a camcorder recording their skateboarding moves, so they would like me, and i could escape the abuse at home. anywhere. somewhere that wasn't my house, and in the end it cost me dearly, always in trouble with these kids, fueling my sister and family's narrative that i was just a bad kid, who was always causing problems, going nowhere in life, and i would never become anyone of value to this world. a reject. years passed like this. when my family outright kicked me out, and i was homeless. My sister threated my parents saying that if they allowed me back home, she would call the police. I would sleep in my car in random grocery store parking lots, always afraid a police officer would come and look in my car. I would stay up most of the night sweating with the windows cracked rehearsing what excuse i would make to the police if they came. I would drive around with my laptop, charging it on the outlets outside of public bathrooms, using them to clean myself out of the sink. Id drive around with my laptop in the passenger seat looking for free wifi, so i could connect my laptop and upload whatever music i had made in the car to soundcloud.

I stayed where i could, in disgusting cheap hotels in the crime riddled adjacent towns. I remember one night in my hotel room, i had to call the police. A dispute broke out between the man and woman in the room next to mine, and the child was crying. I was afraid something terrible would happen, both of them screaming at the top of their lungs. I remember sitting there with my guitar on the bed, my shaved head at the time, looking in the hotel bathroom mirror thinking to myself. How did my life get this way? Am i really the only one who likes my music? Is my music really this bad? Is my dad right? Will i always be a nobody? Eventually i got a job at a department store, and i began to spend all my time in these terrible, and cheap apartments. i met Jacob, he came into my life and wasn't a bad person, but someone who just wanted to make music and speak to me about existence, reality, deep questions of the universe. he changed everything for me, made me feel confident in myself,
and just like that Jacob was gone.
i had lost many friends to suicide, road vehicle accidents, but never anything like this.

i was so distraught i stayed home from work for days crying endlessly, it was then that i wrote the first “nothing is real”. i moved to a different apartment, to try to get my mind into a new state of mind, and began playing around with the piano more and more, more than ever. Before i had mostly played strings, my 6 string bass, many guitars, ukulele, and more. With piano though, with no formal training, i dont know a single note name, no music theory, but the emotions were so raw. All i have ever done is just close my eyes and listen to the pain inside, and the notes always seem to just appear. i i recalled those long nights with Jacob, looking into the starts contemplating our place in this universe. talking about the fractal nature of existence, how we are so small. and that everything might just be a dream or an illusion. we always said "nothing is real" and laughed as if it were a comic joke, only us soul-bound-friends we're in on. sitting alone now, the piano felt as if, Jacobs hands were layed over-top of mine, guiding me. i still feel his presence guiding me, and i encourage it. my best friend was taken too soon, and i would speak rather insanely to his ghost, for years. in the empty car seat beside me, at my desk.

saying "ok Jacob, lets do this" and from the music i made before, till now, starting the “nothing is real” series, to me it felt like for the first time i knew exactly how to let the music pour out, as if he was there guiding me every second from then till now. it's like i became his physical medium, as he chose to hang down here on earth. I used to feel a bit insane, imagining him saying something like “heaven is cool man, but i wanna chill with my friend and make awesome music”

 i understand his soul isn't actually phasing thru my body, but what it is, is that belief he instill in me, making me feel like some sort of genius. he believed in me so much, the only way i can honor him, and repay him for the confidence he took in me, is by believing in myself for him.

and just like that, nothing is real began to pour out. Unfortunately, thru the endless years of deep sadness, i never wanted to experience loss like this and became a recluse. A shut in. i still to this day wont go outside for weeks at a time. Unless i absolutely have to. My social anxiety has become so bad, just going to get food takes mental preparation. i never wanted to make another friend, for my fear of losing them is not something i could stand to bare. it has been over 6 years now, and i never did make a new friend.

i think the double edged sword was, i let myself fall into years of crippling depression, telling myself that, the only way i can make the world’s realest music, in a world where everyone and everything is fake and greedy, is to write from the true depths of despair. not for attention, not for money, just like i was throwing myself a rope out of the depths of hell. The mask, while in all honesty was always just a metaphor, it has no mouth, just ears and eyes, because i think people need to listen and see other people better, and speak less. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. Thats essentially the masks purpose. I find it quite gross if i can be honest, the way many musicians plaster their faces all over everything, and carry this look as if they are some sort of god. Ive read some artists bios basically pretending as if their mind was touched by god, and it’s very off putting to me. So rather, the mask makes me not exist. For me its perfect. The music is just music, and nobody will ever know who or what i was. All that will be left is the music.
But anyways, back to the social anxiety,
somewhere along the line, the stress and depression began to physically destroy me. i started to limp, and grow weak. i would stumble, then my foot began tingle. over the course of 6 months, i could barely walk, my left leg and hand felt like extreme pins and needles 24/7, i was loosing my eye sight, i couldn't control my fingers, i was developing a speech impediment. i needed urgent care right away, but because of C0VID 19, i lost my job, and i had no health insurance. after a few months, and it only got worse, i applied for free American health care. while i waited for it to be approved, i visited a public hospital and applied for free care, after it was approved at the free hospital, much of nothing happened. i was in the ER multiple times, with zero help. They gave me random drugs that just made things worse. they just gave me pain pills and sent me on my way. after the hopelessness was at an all time high, i had accepted this was not a short term thing. i was getting worse exponentially faster, and began listening to my body. something deep inside me, told me, this isn't your hands, or legs, or eyes. this is your brain. maybe i have a tumor? i just knew it was my brain. it felt like my body was eating itself, like my brain was consuming. all the while, i kept writing "nothing is real" albums. all the guitar/bass/strings work in the music at this time was recorded 1 note at a time and stitched together to sound like a performance, because my left hand couldn't jump between shapes and chords. this might be hard to believe, but this album cover, - was drawn before i was diagnosed with MS. it goes to show, we really can feel whats wrong, without ever getting an MRI.

but the day came, after 6 months of my health slowly withering away. the approval for real American healthcare came thru, and my family drove me to the hospital within seconds of getting the letter in the mail. while i spent 6 months getting nowhere at the free hospital, within hours at the paid hospital, they ordered an MRI of my brain, and discovered over 26 lesions, in my brain neck and spine. i was immediately admitted to the hospital for intensive care. they immediately recognized it as multiple sclerosis. sclerosis means "cuts" and multiple.. well it means, a lot of cuts inside you on the brain, neck and spinal cord. unfortunately to confirm a case of MS, they must extract Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) thru method of a Spinal Tap. so the order was placed, and i was confirmed to have multiple sclerosis. they immediately started me on 2500mg of liquid IV prednisone. within hours my hand was feeling better, and my limp was going away. i thought i was saved. but after a few days in the hospital, a group of doctors, an actual group of 5+ people with clip boards came in, and broke us the bad news. there is no cure, this will only get worse, this will kill me me one day. the best thing i can do , is try to lower my stress levels, as cortisol (the stress chemical) is one of the few things known to scientists, to fuel the progression of MS.

this is when i decided to go by the name “my head is empty”. The doctors told me that keeping my stress low would be my best chance, so now i try to keep my mind clear, my “head empty” in an attempt to prolong my lifespan.
i left the hospital after one week, alone and afraid in this world. i was so afraid, i wasn't even thinking of Jacob. only myself. luckily, my girlfriend Miranda Rain was with me thru it all. i told her, listen, you don't have to continue to date me. they told me one day i will likely be in a wheel chair, and 65% of people with MS develop dementia, and forget who they are. she just cried and reassured me, that nothing would ever tear us apart. i love her so much. the worst sadly, was yet to come. the hole they poked in my spinal cord to extract the Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) didn't heal, i was slowly leaking brain fluid causing pressure on my brain. this was the first time in my life i thought i was going to die.

it was so intense that, my father who was caring for me, i began to tell him who to give all my belongings too. we both cried, the way he looked in my  eyes, id never seen anything like it. looking at his face, vivid fractal geometric patterns began to spill across his skin. i was so certain of my impending doom, my real final true end, death. my brain was releasing the dream chemical and making me hallucinate, just like at the real end of a persons life. it was so scary.

we went to the hospital, but they didn't help me, and i went home and wadded up a sock with a waistband to put pressure on the hole, based on a google search tip. after a few days, the hole sealed and my brain began to rebuild the lost fluid. from that time till now, i never stopped trying to make more "nothing is real" albums. some are "better" some are "worse" but they are all only written thru my times of struggle. i don't see why people make such happy music, perhaps i just don't relate to it. but i think that, happy people don't need to be made happier. its like putting a gold start, on top of a gold star. i think, if i am able to make music, it needs to come from true times of my deepest and realest  pain and  despair, because if i can capture this, and get it out there, maybe other people will hear my struggle, and my soul, and they too will connect with my feelings, and in that moment, someone out there, will not feel as alone as i have, thru out every moment of my life. - thanks for reading.


- these days the goal is to just try to make the best music i can, and hopefully be able to provide a life for miranda and i from it. If you read this far, i don’t ask anything of you. Just listening to my songs on spotify or wherever is the best thing you can do, so to everyone listening, thank you so much. It means the world to me <3