Jeff Adams doesn’t mind stepping outside his comfort zone.

The St. Clair Shores, Michigan singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist entered unexpected musical territory while penning his latest single, “Everything … A Love Song.”

“I don’t usually write love songs. It’s not my forte, but I’m usually writing about the human condition and believing in yourself,” said Adams, who fronts the prog-rock collective 11:21 and plays guitar, keys, and piano.

“The first line that came to me was ‘You’re my everything,’ and I thought, ‘Oh no, this is a love song!’ And when a song takes over, it takes over like a monster. Until I record it and let it go, it has me completely consumed.”

What resulted is an inspirational ode to true love on “Everything … A Love Song,” which features personal lyrics and soaring prog-rock and Americana instrumentation.

Surrounded by grateful pedal steel and cello, Adams sings, “We walk side by side / ‘Cause you’re my everything / When you need me for support / I will do anything / When I let you deep inside / You handle my scary things / Together we can fly / And that’s the very thing / That keeps me coming back to you / It was always meant to be.”

“I am with a partner here, and I went and spent two years with her in LA during COVID. And then we bought a house and moved back here with three dogs, seven cats, and a bunny,” he said.

“Every time I got to the part, ‘You’re my everything,’ I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I was stuck … and I had to back-engineer it. Then I started to think about my partner, and I thought, ‘Yeah if you need me for support, I’ll do anything—don’t even think twice. When I let you deep inside, you handle my scary things—that’s trust.’”

A Love Song and More

To realize his vision for “Everything … A Love Song,” Adams assembled a talented team of musicians to record the track at his Metro Detroit home studio and remotely at Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, New Jersey.

11:21 bandmates Meg Patrick (vocals), Phil Steuer (bass), Larry Labeck (pedal steel), Jason Charboneau (cello), and Darin Curtis (drums) combined their skilled musicianship to help Adams create the uplifting track.

“I challenged myself, and I started to record it before I finished the lyrics … but I feel good about it as far as love song goes. The umbrella of 11:21 is for all the different musicians that are contributing,” said Adams, who named the collective after the time stamp.

“I laid the basic track down, but I let all of the [musicians] do what they wanted to do and [determine] how they heard it and what they were feeling. Nine times out of 10 they will come up with another melody in the song for me to work with.”

Along with 11:21, Adams also demonstrates his creative prowess on “The Tempest,” a bold anthem encouraging women and other marginalized groups to fight for their rights.

Backed by determined electric guitars, keys, and pedal steel, Adams and Meg Patrick sing, “There’s music all around me (Woman used to rule the world) / To teach you, if you would listen (When did they begin to tell us what to do) / Then go back in time (That we could not think for ourselves) / Find this time (They can’t get away with it anymore).”

“There’s a moral compass here and that’s been lost. That’s what’s got me fired up more than anything else. I have an issue with that because the narrative was ‘Our bodies, our choice’ … and what came to mind is the position women are finding themselves in now,” Adams said.

“I wasn’t trying to be political, but that’s the way it came out saying, ‘Leave us alone, just let us be.’ As I was writing the narrative, I realized it was for all marginalized people.”

Next, Adams and 11:21 advocate being present on the philosophical ballad, “Sometimes It’s Never Enough.”

Immersed in contemplative electric guitar and pedal steel, Adams sings, “We ride along / Until tomorrow, then the day after that / We ride along / We rely on yesterday / But it’s here, and it’s now / That we really need to stay … for a while.”

“I’ve been doing shadow work and deep diving for self-growth. This thought crossed my mind: ‘If everything is happening now in the moment, then this song I’ve just written never was, yet it’s always been.’ How do I say, ‘Past, present, and future, but be here now?’” said Adams, who grew up in New York City and first moved to Michigan in the late ‘80s.

“[The song] is saying, ‘We’re cruising along guys and we have to stop and get into the moment. What are we here for?’ It’s stuff that we all think about.”

The Studio and Beyond

To bring “Sometimes It’s Never Enough” and “The Tempest” to life in the studio, Adams worked with 11:21 bandmates Meg Patrick (vocals) and Larry Labeck (pedal steel) on both tracks.

“I gave Larry the song when it was still one guitar or piano so he could percolate with it. Then when it was time for him to come into the studio, he set up and we ran the song down four times. He played something different each time … and within an hour he was done, and I had all these brilliant tracks of pedal steel to edit,” said Adams, who’s inspired by Yes, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, and James Taylor.

“I did vocals with Meg in New Jersey and she went to Sound on Sound Studios. And David Amlen, who’s a Grammy Award winner, he’s the one who engineers all of our stuff and he’s a brilliant musician. They put me on Zoom, Meg was in the studio, and we said, ‘Try this, try that. Go higher. Double this,’ and … that’s how we got the background vocals.”

Adams also collaborated with Darin Curtis (drums) and Phil Steuer (bass) on “The Tempest” and John Haddad (bass) and Jason Charboneau (cello) on “Sometimes It’s Never Enough.” Meanwhile, all three tracks were mixed by Kevin Wesley Williams at WesMix Studios.

“Phil and Darin are the go-to rhythm section … and they understand me now. They don’t hear my finished product when I get them in the studio. It’s bare bones, but they understand when I ask them to ‘Go here or do this’ and that I have an end result in mind,” he said.

“The turnarounds at the end of each chorus … Darin came up with that turnaround on the drums and Jason with the cello. The turnarounds are brilliant and that was their contribution.”

With a burgeoning catalog, Adams continues to spread messages of hope, change, and growth while writing songs for 11:21.

“Fundamentally, where I’m coming from and with everything I write is: We can do better. Individually, people have to start believing in themselves as opposed to what other people are saying or doing,” he said. “That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing,” he said.

Looking ahead, Adams is writing new material, releasing instrumental versions of his latest tracks, and preparing to release a new video for “Everything … A Love Song” on November 21.

“Fundamentally, people want to see you, they want to know your story, and they want to know what you’re doing. The next thing I’m going to release is acoustic and with no vocals,” he said.

“I have one song called ‘Archangel’ that’s a minute and 30 seconds, and I have another song called ‘In Time.’ I’m going to put them together as one and it’s going to be called ‘Archangel / In Time.’”