MOBILE, Alabama – Robbie Morgan will sing a song for you. Heck, Robbie Morgan will write a song for you, or produce one of yours. All he wants in return is your help with a few things he needs to get off his chest.
Here’s the deal: Morgan has been recording, playing and producing music for years in the Mobile area. He released his first solo album, “Sleeper Hit,” back in 2005 under the stage name Robah. Since then, he’s gotten a degree in audio production at the University of Southern Mississippi. He’s got a band project called Green Lights that has spent more time in the studio than on the stage, and the unreleased material has been piling up.
On April 15, Morgan turns 30. In conjunction with that milestone, he's launched a campaign on www.kickstarter.com to raise money for an ambitious multi-album release.
The goal: Morgan wants to raise enough money to put out a pair of new Green Lights albums, “Dancing On Our Graves” and “Songnos,” including a vinyl pressing; plus a separate EP and a collection of various instrumentals, demos and bonus tracks; plus a short film about the making of the two core albums.
The target: The Kickstarter campaign has a target of $10,000 by April 15. For those who haven’t encountered it before, Kickstarter is an all-or nothing pledge drive. People who look at a proposal have the option of making a pledge; if the target is made, they’re billed for the pledge amount, but if the pledges don’t hit the target by the deadline, would-be contributors don’t owe anything. Results can be a powerful validation: Mobile’s Crescent Theater recently succeeded in raising more than $75,000 for a new digital projection system through the site.
The bait: Kickstarter drives usually offer donors a variety of perks proportional to their pledges, and the Green Lights offering is no exception. Rewards range from a basic digital release ($2 or more) up to a Super Deluxe Package ($250 or more) including digital release, vinyl release, handmade scrapbook and more. $1,000 or more gets you a performance at your house; for $2,000 or more Williams will write and record a song for you; for $5,000 or more he’ll record and produce an acoustic song for you or your band.
It’s an ambitious undertaking, but Morgan says he’d like to see the material get the release he thinks it deserves, rather than being trickled out over the next few years. It’s been a long time coming, and he estimates that he’s worked with more than 30 musicians on the Green Lights material. “There’s not really a permanent lineup,” he says. (He singles out Dave Jenks, based in Massachusetts, as his main collaborator and co-writer.)
“They were put together for a reason,” he says of “Dancing on Our Graves” and “Songnos.” “It’s not necessarily a double album, but they definitely complement each other.”
Full details can be found at www.kickstarter.com, where the drive opened on Monday. Music from "Dancing On Our Graves" and "Songnos" can be sampled at soundcloud.com.