On May 12, 2014, ‘A Lot Like Birds’ guitarist Michael Franzino launched an Indiegogo campaign to help fund his new project called “alone.” Franzino needs $10,000 to fund this project, and in three days, he is almost halfway to completing that goal.

“I kind of expected to be scrambling to make it happen by the end. It is three days in and it’s already about 50% funded. I have so much love for the friends and fans A Lot Like Birds and I have made over these years. We may not have the most fans in the world, but we definitely have the most supportive ones.” Franzino said via email.

For this project, Franzino will be renting a cabin in the woods and spending two months alone while he writes, hence the title “alone.” The description for the campaign is appropriately “Help send Michael Franzino into the woods alone to go insane and/or write the softer musical counterpart to main project A Lot Like Birds and ultimately record it.”

“I have wanted to do something different than A Lot Like Birds for a long time now in a general sense, but being in a full time touring band and keeping up with surviving in the real world can be very time and mind consuming. The idea of the woods became attractive to me a few months ago, but I was honestly pretty reluctant to move forward with it due to my uncertainty of the project’s worth to our fans, fear of stretching myself too thin, and the general size of the task at hand. However, a dream without a plan is just a wish and I’ve found that once I make a deadline or set plans that I cannot go back on, I always rise to the occasion and am grateful for my doing so.Thoreau, Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver [inspired me to do this]. I’m not the first to have the idea of isolation to promote creativity and insight. It’s such a romantic and pure way to get inspired to me, I am really excited to see how it effects me and my process.” Franzino said.

Fans of A Lot Like Birds should be expecting something different than the usual fast paced chaotic sound. While he’s not sure what exactly he wants the new music to sound like, he assures fans that it will be slower and more intimate.

“As it hasn’t been written yet, I don’t want to marry too many notions that could hold me back or narrow my options when I finally do sit down to write it. I can say that it will be much softer and chiefly focused on setting deep moods far more than technicality or musical proficiency. There will be a wide array of instruments, and a lot more focus on them rather than having them be a little treat for a song. A string section will play a heavy role. It’s generally an effort to just make beautiful music that is universal. I want to connect with all people, regardless of age, clique, or genre standards.” Franzino said.

Indiegogo.com allows the campaign hoster to set up perks for contributing certain amounts. The perks for alone. range everywhere from a $10 donation that gives the contributor a digital pre-order of the cd, to a $750 donation where the contributor gets the album dedicated to them and their name in the title of a track (this perk has already been claimed). There is even a $350 donation where Franzino will tattoo the contributor’s name on his rear-end. Only three people are able to claim this perk.

“I have a couple tattoo artists as friends that will do it for me. I’ll probably make the names into a shape of some sort, tat them, and then take a picture or film it for proof.” Franzino said.

Fans do not need to worry about Franzino quitting A Lot Like Birds to work on alone. Franzino is very insistent that A Lot Like Birds is his first priority and that any and all work done with alone. will be done around A Lot Like Birds’ schedule. He plans on leaving for the cabin after Warped Tour, and even hints at new A Lot Like Birds after the alone. album is finished.

“I think alone. will scratch an itch I have had for a long time and allow me to easier focus on what A Lot Like Birds needs for our fourth record. When the first alone. record is finished I will start writing ‘ALLB LP IV’ very shortly afterwards.” Franzino said.

If you want to help fund Michael Franzino’s “alone.”, go to http://igg.me/at/fundalone.