Walking the streets of Toronto with a PhD in philosophy and a few songs... That was Michael Kearns, some time in the late 20th century. Wondering what to do – become a professor or follow the songs? The songs won. Deciding to leave town and head for Los Angeles. Arriving there and ending up castle-sitting for a famous actress, and after that he found himself in a hotel off Hollywood Boulevard where the good news was there were no cockroaches but the bad news was the only smell was cockroach spray.

Making a living doing singing telegrams in a one-man donkey suit rented from the Western Costume Company, where they also have the uniforms from all the World War II movies. Then working as a bureaucrat...exchanging molecules with huge office buildings. But the songs kept coming. Some of them were about the secret thoughts of cubicle dwellers – this was long before a show called The Office. Some were about LA, some were about love and fear and time.

Then a move to Nashville, where he finds a community of mad artists, songwriters of every stripe. Produces records in his home studio. Writes for a local music paper, profiling such distinguished artists as Guy Clark, Kostas, and Suzi Ragsdale. Starts to write books (see jmkearns.com), and soon they're getting published and that takes over a lot of his life. Along the way he gets a band together, the Lonely Mammals. And on a Friday afternoon in 2007, they record 10 songs and a CD called Death or Life is born. Buy it on CD Baby or download a couple of its songs on our download page, along with other unreleased Kearns songs.