ARTIST'S STATEMENT

For as long as I have been alive, there have been two things that mattered to me: music and humanity.

I discovered at early age that my calling was music. I never felt better than when I was listening to or making music, so, as a child, I began developing my musical abilities. I honed my piano skills and I spent most of my time singing or listening to music. To me, music was a language that went into the heart and bypassed the mind. Music could change people's lives, their outlooks, their feelings. There was a certain power in music because it is the language of the soul. Music made me feel things and it changed me. Music was a part of me and it penetrated me. Music brought me closer to heaven.

I knew early on that I wanted to be an artist. I was a little girl who felt she had a little box inside her that was filled with music. As I grew, some people recognized what was inside the box and tried to draw it out from me, but, often, the people trying to draw it out had the wrong motives or they wanted the box for themselves. I, however, always regarded my musical abilities as a gift and I was very protective of that gift, so, when I turned 17, I resolved that my gift – the gift of music that heaven had given me – was a gift to be given. It was a gift to be shared, not to be bought or owned. My parents, who provided me with a strict religious upbringing, naturally, were not thrilled when their little girl said she wanted to be an artist. They tried to steer me towards a different path, but I had my dreams and I was determined to make them happen.

When I was 18 I had a chance to get involved in the more mainstream music industry,but I turned it down because it would have required me to be untrue to my dream. I would have had to be what others wanted me to be, not be who I really was. Others tried to manage or control me, but I would walk away from them because I knew that wasn't the way for me to go. The usual route was not an option for me because I had a dream and a vision and I would not mold myself to be someone I was not. I needed to work with someone who cared more about artistic development than about money. I remember at the time being hearing from above, "Keep working and follow your heart." And so I did.

But it wasn't easy. Often, I found myself fighting a huge war inside because something had always tried to keep me far away from music. I tried to fight it alone, but I soon learned the truth -- I couldn't fight it alone. So, I gave up control and gave it all to heaven. I spent the next three years in battle. Three years of fighting and trying to create a way to not only let the music become a reality, but also to protect it. I didn't care about protecting myself. I only cared about protecting the music.

I worked endless hours as a fashion, fine art and fetish model to save enough money to buy music equipment and to move to New York where I could create the music that was swimming inside my head. During that first year I spent making money to finance my dream and move to the city, I learned many lessons -- some of them were very hard ones. I was glad that I learned those lessons through modeling world rather than through the music business.

It was a hard battle to fight, but when I finally moved into my loft in New York, and set up the music studio equipment I had worked so hard for, I sat there looking over the skyline with my Korg Triton and Mackie Mixer in the room I knew i had done the right thing even though the right this is often the hard thing. By then I had learned a few hard lessons the hard way, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was that I was in New York and in a music studio I had built single-handedly. I had made it.

At that point, David Kirby, my friend since I was 13 and my co-producer on Neverland, came to New York and we made music. Together, we made a song called "Lost." it is a beautiful song about finding yourself and that is how I felt when I was making music I felt found. For the next six months, I worked on growing, on getting better, on getting stronger. Then, David and I made our first complete album, which we called "Beta." Beta gave me my introduction into producing and it also opened up doors for me in many areas of the industry. Because of Beta, I found supporters not only within the music industry, but also from the world of modeling, the arts and, thanks to the Internet, from people all over the world.

After completing Beta, David and I went our separate ways. I moved closer to the city and worked on growing even more. In some ways, I was still running from the gift. People kept telling me things like, "Music will always be there. Just focus on modeling." So, I went to Milan and it was there that I did a lot of soul searching to find out who I was and what I was supposed to do with my life. As I walked around between castings and shoots I felt a string tugging at my heart.......music was calling me.

I had spent years doing whatever it took to keep my vision true. Music was my soul and I never compromised when it came to music. I may have done things the hard way, but, at the end of the day, my vision was real, and, for me, that was very important. So I returned to New York with a plan -- a vision – and I worked and I waited and sure enough the doors began to open. I received a generous grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts which allowed me the time to dedicate myself to music. I began writing songs, putting mp3s up and found that my music was always in the top ten. Then another door opened when I received an email from a record label – Emperor Penguin Recordings.

When I got that email from EPR asking if I would do an album, I wrote back saying that there was only one way I would do an album: I had to be in complete creative control from start to finish. I wanted to name it; I wanted to write the songs; I wanted to hire the producer. I wanted to make the record that was within my soul. If the label wasn't willing to abide by those terms, well, then, I would pass. EPR though is very unique and visionary, and was willing to work with me. The head of the label knew of me and had followed my work on the Internet, so he knew I was serious and he saw working with me like this would be a new way for artists to develop and grow and a new way for a record label to do business. He gave me complete control, but we worked together and treated each other as equals. And the result is Neverland.

In many ways, this album is my "hello" from the underground. This album is from my soul. It is a reflection of my life. It is how I see the world. Like me, It is avant-pop – a mix of cutting edge popular music. With Neverland, I have taken what I love about popular music and popular culture – the beauty of them both – and put them together. This album represents what I love about being an artist. This album let me share my message that life is meant to be lived, not suppressed and it let me express myself. Neverland let me create from my feelings, from my soul, from my heart. I feel that we as a society need to return to our souls and to truth for that is the only way things will ever get better in our own lives or for humanity in general.

Neverland is music created to plug you into yourself. I created it with the help of David Kirby, my brilliant and talented producer. It is an album created as an album and to be heard as an album. Neverland is me saying, "Hello, nice to meet you and I hope you find some part of yourself within my work."

Jillian Ann
New York City, August 2003

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