Who the hell are you?

The short version:

We're recording our fourth album, "If You Need Me, I'll Be Wrecking the System" — a return to our rock roots. We've always tried to make everything free for listeners, but with this studio-recorded album, we need to be able to pay the studio folks for their time. Look at our perks, they're bizarre. And listen to a sample track from this new album to see if you like it.

The long version:

In 2007, I started a band called Paris and the Hiltons. Stupid name? I thought so too. It was meant to be a joke band.

Six years on, the Paris and the Hiltons sound not a joke anymore, and our sound is pretty unmistakable. My voice has been said to sound like a "sober Tom Waits," Marylin Manson, that guy from the Eels, and other, less flattering things.

With my absurdly gifted bandmate Sam, I've merged my two great passions — music and literature — on various releases. Our IMA-nominated album Reading Journals featured over 20 tracks based on the work of William Faulkner. We've taken several other famous writers as our starting point for releases.

We've mixed an insane amount of genres: from hard rock to jazz to dubstep to piano ballads to spoken word to symphonic prog-rock to cabaret. 

But our new project is different. It's a return to more conventional rock, entirely studio-recorded, with a bigger group working behind the scenes than before. It's no longer just about me and Sam, and we have to take that into account.

I'm a full-time PhD student, and I run a fiction press. I don't have the kind of financial resources I used to have, and I'm trying to make this new album good. I want to pay the people involved properly for their help with mixing and other production stuff.

The album is already underway, and we have several tracks at varying stages of completion. It's going to happen anyway in some form. This Indiegogo project is there to make sure it can happen as we intended it in the first place, at a professional level, with the musicians and engineers involved being compensated for their time.

This has always been a fiercely indie project. We've always made our albums free. We're using a small local studio, run by people my age who decided to go for it on their own. We're working on a small budget, and we've got to make it work. But we want to make it worthwhile for those who help with the funding, too, so we've come up with some fun, slightly weird perks so everyone's happy.

What do you need?

$3000. More is, of course, better, but we could just about make it work for $2500, given what we've already put into it ourselves.

The album is already in production. Whatever money we can raise here is going directly into studio time:

• recording, including local session musicians if required 
• mixing
• mastering

If we raise more than expected, the extra cash will go toward the album art, and expanded online distribution.

Are the perks worth it?

I think so. Have you seen them?

Can I listen to some of your old stuff?

Of course.

Here's an old fan favorite, an acoustic track, The Desert.

Here's a mix of dubstep drums, distorted guitars and Ezra Pound's poetry: Souls Out of Erebus.

Here's our very dark, miserable sounding cover of Call Me Maybe.

Can you show us any tracks from the new album yet?

Yep. You can listen to the only finished track on the album, which we focused on to help with the fundraising.

It's called Nightmare Body.

Can you get this done?

Yes. The album is not going to die halfway through. It's the quality of the sound, and the number of tracks on the album, that depends on funding.

I've got a history of getting stuff done, or helping others to get stuff done:

I was one of the founders of LitReactor, one of the strongest independent creative writing workshops on the web.

I've written and published several books, including a memoir, through different presses, and I run my own press.

Plus, I'm easy to find if you decide you hate the album and want to pelt me with garbage.