When Dylan Cohen finally got sober in late 2016, he thought he couldn't write songs anymore.

In and out of twelve-step meetings and living off employment insurance, he was finally stabilizing, but less inspired than ever. "I felt motivated to get clean, I knew I had to - but nothing struck me anymore and gave me that "I need to write this" feeling."  For Dylan, his youth spent writing raps, poems and hooks felt like a skill dependent on the highs and lows of the one consistent thing in his life - using drugs.

Around six months into recovery, Dylan was cleaning out his closet when he found one of his old notebooks. The notebook contained raps and rants from peaks of ego while high on crystal meth, a hand drawn diagram of the origin of the universe seen while tripping on acid, but also depressive one liners and hooks of desperation from his years abusing oxycontin. Another notebook he found contained writings from a time in which Dylan lived in a 16 bed sober living facility in eastern Ontario. Most of the writing wasn’t good from a song writing standpoint - nothing was fully formed or coherent - it was like a shattered mirror of hand written reflections that looked to be as broken and nonsensical as Dylan thought his life was.