JT Woodruff of Hawthorne Heights shocked fans earlier this week with the release of his debut solo album, Heavy, Heavy, Heavy, Heavy Heart, and PropertyOfZack is now stoked to be doing a Track-By-Track with JT for the release. The album is a largely DIY effort by JT, and you can only purchase the album here for now. Check out the Track-By-Track and make sure to listen to the album if you’ve yet to!

Some of these songs covered some rough times, but maybe they can help other people who have dealt with similar issues.
Music shouldn’t make you sick, it should heal you. That is why songwriters sit there for hours on end, trying to find a cure for something. Sometimes you find it immediately. Sometimes when you think you have found it, nobody else likes it. But…that is the risk you take when putting yourself out there. I would rather take the risk, than hide from criticism. I want to help as many people as possible by doing whatever it is that I do. If someone can feel better just for a few minutes by listening to this, than I am totally happy. It’s not meant for the dance club. It’s not meant for the radio rock bar. It’s meant for the hurting and healing.
Enjoy…
Love JT Woodruff.
 
I also chose to release this with the help of my friend, and Hawthorne Heights merch guy, Matthew Jenkins. He is the most honest person I know, and has been running a DIY label by himself since the 1990’s. He is a small business, and that is what I support. I hope everyone will feel the same way. Order from him at www.fdrshop.com 
 
Letters In Transit
I wrote the lyrics to this song a few years back during my first trip to England with Hawthorne Heights. I kind of knew on the spot that the lyrics weren’t going to work for the band, because they don’t really fit what we have going on…so I saved them because it was a very personal time for me. We had been on a non stop whirlwind of touring, and this is when it got a little overwhelming because I just needed a break. We weren’t having any problems or anything, because we all get along pretty well…but I was just mentally burned out from not being home in such a long time. I wrote these lyrics after the first show while laying in my bunk. I just remember thinking about how different the culture was and how I just wanted to be home. Since that first time overseas I have come to love England, and the rest of the world in general. A lot of my favorite places to play are in different countries, because of all the customs that I am not used to. I love diversity and how a lot of different people can get along just for love of music. But for one night while writing this song, I just wanted to be back in Ohio. I wrote about how I would brave the extreme elements just to watch my girl sleep.
 
Avery
This is one of the toughest songs I have ever written. You sacrifice a lot of things to be on tour and play music for people every night. Most listeners don’t really consider what bands are going through in their personal lives, because most artists are really guarded about their personal lives. I also don’t really expect people to care about that side of me, because they don’t know about it. When we were on Warped Tour 2007 I was nervous wreck. My wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child, and I just kept waiting for phone to ring, so I could get on a plane to witness my daughter’s birth. This is a milestone in a man’s life, and I was on tour during the most important part. I love to tour, and Warped Tour is the best tour to do and have fun at…but I just couldn’t stop worrying about my wife being alone. So I wrote this song for my unborn daughter, hoping that she would wait for me to get home. It turns out that she would hold on and wait just long enough for me to get back and spend the last week of the pregnancy with my wife. I thank her every day for that. She still smiles when I play this song. I bet it will embarrass her when she gets older…but for now, I smile too.
 
Death Of Me
When I was a little kid we used to drive all the way from Columbus, Georgia to Eureka West Virginia to visit my Grandparents. They live by this enormous backwater area that you can see right from the road. We didn’t really have fire flies (lightning bugs) where I lived in Georgia so I loved packing into the car and driving to wild and wonderful West Virginia for some summertime fun with my Grandparents. I always hated leaving after spending a week there. I had just gotten accustomed to fishing off the dock, and catching fire flies in a glass jar…and right when I was at the pinnacle of summer, I had to leave. I was sitting on my back porch one night in Ohio and noticed the fire flies dancing, and it immediately took me back to good old WV in the 1980’s. That’s what I love about music…I put a pen to paper that night and these lyrics came out, and it brought me back to my childhood just for a few minutes. This song was meant to be acoustic, but I made it electric to capture the energy of youth. 
 
Let Me Sleep Tonight
The hardest week of my life was after my good friend Casey Calvert passed away. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I am straight edge…so I don’t drink or do drugs to numb the pain. I just sat there at a desk with a pen and paper, and some pictures of our friendship. I didn’t write a word or even scratch the paper for a few days. I just couldn’t do it. The pen was too heavy. The paper was too bright. I just wanted to turn the lights out and sleep until I felt better. Eventually I started to heal enough to make some sense of everything. You never recover and never heal enough to get over something like this…but music and time help you remember the good times. I still remember that time period of sleepless nights and frustrated days. It hurt to close my eyes then…
 
Stay The Night
A couple of my friends and I were sitting around one night talking about our girlfriends back when we were in high school, and we got into some pretty hilarious conversations. One dude was mentioning how he used to sneak out of his house and throw rocks at his girlfriends window. I didn’t think that anyone actually did that…I thought it was a movie myth. So we were making fun of him for probably an hour and coming up with all of these scenarios that I can’t go into without severely embarrassing him…but you get the idea. I decided to take the best parts of the stories and create a song out of them. The core issue was our first concept of love, and it being just out of reach. You would spend hours on a house phone just listening to each other breathe haha. But, it was all in the name of love…and sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes you feel helpless when you have a curfew. Sometimes you have to throw rocks at a window…
 
Beg And Borrow
I was messing around with some electronic sounds on my laptop during a flight, and came up with the core of this song. Lyrically it’s about doing what it takes to survive, all in the name of your family. We, as Americans, are taught to take out loans and use credit cards for stuff that we don’t need…and there is a little bit of that in this song. I mention how the only thing that we really own is the daughter that we created. Everything else is owned by some bank or company…So why should we be focused on material objects? As long as you are there for family, family will be there for you. Sometimes you have to do what is necessary, whether you like it or not. But that’s life. If there is a lesson to be learned, it’s to not get yourself into bad situations when you don’t have to.
 
Four Leaf Clover
Everybody has bad luck in life…that’s a fact. I wrote these lyrics when I felt that nothing could go right. Every corner I turned there was a brick wall. Probably a good solid year of brick walls…and it was starting to wear on me. No matter what your trying to do, if you don’t absolutely succeed it can be considered a failure. I don’t like to think in terms of winning and losing, because none of that matters. But life is hard sometimes, and that is what this song is about. If you spend too much time on the internet, it will show you how evil people can be to people they don’t even know. It is a world of negativity if you let it be, and on one night a few years back it got to me. I was engaged in a conversation about something that doesn’t even matter at all, and I got caught up. From that moment forward, I decided that internet comments can drag you down…so don’t let it. Some people like to pull others to the bottom of the ocean, and if you argue…it’s just another weight added to your feet. Sometimes you just have to close your lips and keep surfing. 
 
Spinning Wheels
To try to reach the middle, every once in awhile you hit the bottom. I say middle, because I have never been one to reach for the top. I don’t belong at the top of anything. The top is dangerous, because everyone wants to knock you off of the top. It would be nice to be in the middle of everything. I love to be average, because it’s like being the best of the good and the bad. Nothing sounds more perfect to me. Spinning Wheels is about running in place. Working hard and getting nowhere…but if nowhere is where you want to be, that’s totally cool. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have dreams…but we don’t all have to be astronauts. Every once in a while the bottom is ok, because it helps you appreciate the middle. You realize how good the middle is, because the top is unattainable. Trust me, average is where it’s at haha. It keeps your feet on the ground, even if you are simply standing still.
 
So Fine
I hate the winter. I think it’s beautiful from the outside looking in…but if I have to be outside in the snow, I am not happy. I wrote this song on a winter day when I had to go out and get the mail. I was just sitting inside by a nice warm fire, and the mail had to come and ruin it. I guess I could have left it out in the box, but I decided to put on my coat and grab it anyway. This song has nothing to do with the mail…it has to do with the comfort that the inside brings. I love to be inside drinking a cup of coffee and watching the snow fall, because I feel safe. There is nothing better than the illusion a foot snow creates when you are warm inside. I’m a big fan of the changing of seasons, and I wrote this song when I was needing that change. Sometimes you just have to ride it out…and if you have to, try to sit by a fire. It makes the winter so much more tolerable.
 
First Train Out
If anyone knows me, they know that I am from St. Marys West Virginia. It’s a tiny town on the border of Ohio, separated by the Ohio River. I spent 6th grade until I was 22 there, and I loved every minute of it. I started playing in bands around there with friends, and wanted to get more serious so I moved to the burgeoning seen of Dayton Ohio. I wrote this song about an experience I had when I felt my life was going nowhere. I was living with my parents and walking to work at a pizza place on the railroad tracks. I was watching a train pass, and really just wanted to hop on it. Eventually I got up the courage to move away, and I met a bunch of new friends and musicians. I am not a Cincinnati Bengals fan living in the Queen City. I caught the first train out, but I catch that same train back whenever I can. I recorded this song in my writing room with just me an a guitar in front of a microphone. It’s simple and honest, and that’s exactly how music should be.
 
Hit Reset (Headphones Only)
I actually decided 2 weeks ago when I was working on releasing this CD, that I would write a song when we Micah and I were playing a show in Alaska. I made the commitment to write the lyrics, melodies, and music in one night staying in a hotel room by myself in Anchorage Alaska. Everywhere I looked there was snow outside, but it was beautiful. I just wanted to use some of that energy to write a song, and release it with no questions asked. I recorded it the minute I got home, after 23 hours of travelling…because I thought it would be more honest that way. I wanted my first take to be the only take. I was a bit delirious from lack of sleep, and one too many plane fights…but I am totally proud of the song. It was an experiment to push myself in a direction I have never been, while visiting a place I have never been. To top it all off, I had a hell of a time in Alaska…