Behind the Scenes: Creating 'Storylines' with Janet Planet

Janet Planet is an amazing vocalist. I don't think I realized, though, what a creative person she is until we started working together on Storylines.

How it Started

I contacted her in the beginning of 2025 and said, "I have 15 songs. Do you want to sing them and make them into a CD". She said yes and we were off.

First we met in person and went through the songs -- the charts I had created as well as "demo" recordings of each song. Janet, Tom Washatka (our producer and music engineer) and I would discuss each song. What was the "vibe", the feel? What should the instrumentation be? The tempo? Over a few months we met in person and mapped out these ideas for each song.

Then Janet went to work with her creativity. She would "live" with a song for a while and then call or message me and say, "Hey, I'm thinking about...." and that would change the feel of the song. She had such a unique take on every song, taking each one to places I had not even imagined.

Ready for Recording

Then we were ready to bring in musicians and record the tracks and the vocals. With 15 songs and lots of musicians. This took a while! We recorded at the amazing recording studio, Steel Moon, that Janet and Tom run in Oshkosh WI.

Here's a picture of the core band. Clockwise: Susan Weinschenk (songwriter, arranger), Kelvin Kaspar (guitar), Matt Buchman (piano/keys), Ryan Korb (percussion) , Tom Washatka (producer, sound engineer, reeds), Janet Planet (arranger and vocalist) Mark Urness (bass).