"Thirteen Songs About Love" is Justin's most recent work, a lush, quirky solo album about love, loss and time. One reviewer said it sounds like “the miracle love child of Elliott Smith and Beth Orton, had Elliott Smith not stabbed himself in the heart." Think rich, organic, vocal–driven songs. Think Beach Boys harmonies and giant, Fleetwood Mac production. Think sad, modern indie–pop singer-songwriter. Think serious departure from Justin’s previous work in music.

During his earlier years, the San Jose, California native played guitar with punk band The Blamed on their first Tooth and Nails Records release. He released one record with industrial band Mortal on Intense Records and two CDs with Spitkiss, whose remixed single “Violent Consumption" landed a spot in a Mercedes-Benz television ad.

But Justin had a not-so-metal secret: “Even though I played in heavy/ rock/ punk/ industrial bands, I always (and almost exclusively) wrote sad love songs on my guitar," he writes in the liner notes of Thirteen Songs About Love. "Pretty much no matter what I tried to write, just about the only thing that ever came out was a sad love song." Those “wuss-rock" songs, as he affectionately calls them, spilled out of him for years, until he realized he was meant to write them. He decided to make a solo album, something that sounded as good as the albums he’d loved the most in his life.

"Why not contact the very people who produced my favorite albums?" he asked himself. So he sent demos of his songs to Christoffer Lundquist (Roxette, Per Gessle, Ulf Lundell, Brainpool), an accomplished producer and one of his personal heroes.

"When someone from across the Atlantic contacts you and says he wants to make an album with you and he has no record company or money but is the proud owner of an extremely expensive tube microphone," Christoffer says, “your first reaction is to write him off as a madman."

"So when I first listened to the demos Justin had sent me, I didn’t have any great expectations at all. It soon became apparent, though, that this was different. Justin’s demos were simple and somewhat rough but there was just something there that was impossible to ignore — a naïve, passionate beauty."

Justin sold everything he had to raise the money to fly to Christoffer’s studio in Sweden to record the album. When he still came up short, he swallowed his pride and asked the readers of his popular online journal for help. Their reaction surprised and overwhelmed him: letters, notes, bills, checks, and PayPal donations poured in from friends and fans around the world. Little kids even sent in coins taped to pieces of paper.

It sounds like a dream come true — crossing oceans to make a record with his heroes, fueled by the love and support of so many — but Justin doesn’t describe Thirteen Songs About Love as the album of his dreams.

“It was better than that," he says. “I didn’t even know how to dream that big."