The Cage I Was In began as most of our album projects do, with a massive collection of song demos that I relentlessly push Dave Matthews to hear. In early March 2015 it began, as I was visiting Nashville for my annual performance as Freddie Mercury in Marcus Hummon's "The Greatest Show Ever", and had a few songs to share with Dave during the trip. He doesn't just press record, he reacts, so I can usually tell when it's going to be a fruitful session; we recorded four songs that day, all of which are on this record.

Most every morning I call Dave during my 40-minute commute to my teaching studio, and we discuss life as well as joke about the fact that I'm sending so many songs to him that we should make a box set. On one of these extra long commutes, Dave suggested that it had been too long since Benjamin Bennett and Steve Clark, the other two thirds of my band The Mayhem, had recorded with us, and the concept for this release was born. It would be a two-disc set; one featuring the full band with electric ten