Several years ago now, I received an email from my good friend Marc Gunn asking if I wanted to do another collaborative album after Don’t Go Drinking with Hobbits. This time, it would be a collection of songs about airship pirates hunting dragons. The song above was one of the resulting tracks.

Collaborating with another artist in any realm is difficult. Collaborating with another artist who lives in another state when you are trying to write songs and can’t play a lick on music except for a song or two on the recorder is nearly impossible! But we managed, and I think came up with a very successful album.

Pirates Vs. Dragons covers a wide range of topics, from joining an airship crew for the first voyage to the dragon’s side of the conflicts to the difficulties of being a girl on a ship full of pirates.

In fact, The Ballad of Jenny Malloy has proved rather controversial. On the one hand, it won a $50 prize in a poetry reading contest…but on the other, it has gotten some bad receptions when Marc sings it because people feel the ending is in poor taste. Honestly, I saw it as a story of a girl who winds up getting exactly what she wants…but apparently, it comes across as her being exploited by her crewmates. It’s probably not politically correct, but it wasn’t intended to be misogynistic either.

One of the other things about this project that was a lot of fun was the “journal” that goes along with it. Originally broadcast as podcasts leading up to the release, it was collected into this Kindle short story:

The premise was that Marc had been kidnapped by these Steampunk pirates and was being forced to write an album of songs before they would release him. The journal adds insight into the songs while telling a story of derring-do all its own.

This collaboration was a lot of fun and gave me a chance to explore a Steampunk world other than that of the Chronicles.

For a chance to win a copy of the album as well as the journal, leave a comment below and include a way to get in touch with you. I will choose a winner on Saturday, July 18, 2020 to give people a chance to play. 🙂

EDIT: No players, no winners…