About a week ago we shared some information about Bayside lead vocalist, Anthony Raneri’s plans for a solo EP. Now, after a few days in the studio, the New Cathedrals EP is almost ready and Bayside fans could not be any more excited. He explains in a statement made on his blog, which you can read inside.

To hold us off until the planned mid-January release, Anthony posted an acoustic version of his first solo song, “The Ballad of Bill The Saint” on his new Bandcamp account.

For a measly buck, you can snag this classic to replay over and over until January, like I am. It’s been a few years in the making, but Anthony’s Solo debut is not far away. Take a listen there or inside and show your excitement in the comments below.

“Greetings friends. I’m writing you from sunny Costa Mesa, CA where I’ve been recording what will become my first true venture into the solo world. Hurley was nice enough to let me use their studio for a while to work on this stuff.

The Reason

First and foremost, it should be made clear that Bayside is not only still a band but will always be my priority. I do have been playing solo shows for a few years now and I’m finally going to release some music that way for two reasons. The First being that Bayside has time off between tours and releases and I don’t like to have time off so doing solo tours and writing more music let’s me constantly play music without having to take breaks. The second reason is that I love the sound that we have crafted in Bayside and I think that our fans do also and sometimes I write songs that I don’t think sound like Bayside songs but I really like them. So rather than change the sound of the band that we have come to love, I figured I would release them under a different name.

The Songs

The songs I’ve been recording are songs that I have written over the course of the last few years that I filed away in my memory under “Cool song, not a Bayside song, maybe people will hear it one day”. I listen to a wide variety of music and I have always wanted to experiment with writing in genres such as country, reggae, ska and folk. The songs I’ve been doing all sound pretty different even from each other since this is just a collection of songs I had around.

The Plan

I’ve decided to make this a truly DIY solo project. I’m going to be self releasing all of my solo stuff by myself as Gumshoe Records. From funding everything to having cds pressed to selling them online and at shows. Any page you see, whether it is my blog, twitter, Facebook, band camp or anything on iTunes was completely started and is run by me. No label, no management, no employees.

I have been blessed with the most amazing fans who have supported our band and my songs for over a decade. I wanted to prove that music, musicians and fans are all that matters. Not labels and suites. I’m doing this on my own because I know that when I musician makes good music and fans support it, you don’t need anything else.”