The creative process for the album ESOPUS began to mold itself into a conceptual work of art during the summer of 2015 while volunteering at a camp located along the Hudson river. The Mid Hudson Valley Camp is a retreat center that runs throughout most of the summer and works primarily as a special needs camp for people with varying disabilities and of all age groups. The camp itself brings together more than just a joyful group of people with love and happiness in their hearts. It attracts a certain indescribable magic and feeling that comes from within, and only those who have experienced the camp will know exactly what I am talking about. Though I've only been volunteering at this camp for 5 years, most of the people that I have made friends with have been attending this camp for 15 years, some even 20 years or more. While up at the MHVC I took immediate notice to the unbreakable bond between the staff and camper. Inspiration immediately started to open up at any chance that I was able to sneak away with my guitar into the chapel located on the premises. It was there that the albums writing process began to take full shape. I observed and stole with my eyes as I began writing about the campers and about their fears and joys in life, their favorite foods, their favorite music, the things that made them smile and the things that made them cry. It was then that I noticed I was doing something wrong not only as an artist but as a person. I was separating myself from the campers. I realized right then and there that was the wrong approach to what I had in mind for an album let alone anything involved with the camp. I then scrapped everything I had written and started over. From that point on I began writing about the camp as it truly was, a unit, a multitude of hearts that beats as one. Togetherness became the driving force and key behind all of the writing. The good times, the sad times, the singing, the dancing, the laughing, the tears. There are no differences or disabilities within the ability for all of us to love. This album ESOPUS is about our ability to love together, to be afraid together, to stand together, to laugh together to do everything together regardless of our differences. Always remember that love has no disability.

Thank you,
Brendon Conroy