“Rulers II” is a concept album, of a kind. Its creation began in January 2012 when Brian found out that his wife was pregnant, and that they were going to have their first child sometime late that September. In addition to all of the other baby preparations to be made, Brian set out to finish and record as many songs as he could before the baby came, when there wouldn’t be the same amount of time to do that sort of thing.

The goal initially was two albums, and 30 songs – a concept album! A rock opera! Because, when would the Rulers have the kind of time to do something that crazy ever again? Out of the 30 songs that were begun, 20 made it on to “Rulers II”, split into two albums – “Rulers in Paradise”, and “Rulers in Blood”. While these albums don’t follow a specific narrative or concept, they are intentionally divided by lighter and darker themes, a kind of exploration of possible outcomes for a new life. The other ten songs will have to wait for Rulers III, because Brian was still doing guitar overdubs and vocals for this project well after the baby was born, and it was time to move on to something else for a while.

After recording was complete, on 6/30/2013, it was time to hand this rather large project off for mixing and mastering, which was split up between Jason McEntire at Sawhorse Studios, and Brian’s Picture Day bandmate Jordan Ross, who both did excellent work in bringing these songs to life. Mixing and mastering were completed in December of 2013, but who wants to release a giant project like this when everyone’s seasonally depressed?