Lore

We write music on our porch.

We are James and Anna Lee. Most Quantaphoria songs begin on our porch in Tullahoma, Tennessee, with a guitar and no idea what the song is about yet.

Usually James finds a guitar part and sings nonsense over it until Anna hears words and harmony. Then we pass the song back and forth, changing whatever needs changing. By the end, neither of us can honestly point at every piece and say, "mine."

That is how we write together. We are married, we have kids, we love life and each other, and we want to share that with the world. We are both weapons-grade neurodivergent and on the autism spectrum. We support causes that raise awareness and help people who need it.

James first played guitar when he was eleven and discovered that it quieted his tics and coprolalia from Tourette syndrome. Those symptoms eased as he got older, but not without the therapy of music and learning.

What Quantaphoria means

Quantaphoria joins quantum and euphoria. James thinks of it as a theory about consciousness and a name for what happens when we write and record together. We let ourselves feel everything.

Who is making this

James Lee is also known as the artist Jams2blues.

James and Anna write every song together and both sing lead. Sometimes one starts a line and the other answers. Elsewhere the voices overlap. They both play guitar.

Dave Love plays bass and contributes recording, mastering, and sound engineering. Other musicians become part of particular songs, and we name them on the records where they played.

On When I Wake (Multiverse Expansion), Leo McNutt plays lead guitar on "Special Day" and electric guitar on "Wishing Well." Steve Brewster plays drums on "When I Wake," "Wishing Well," and "Special Day." James and Anna wrote every song. Anna wrote the melodies, lyrics, and harmonies except for the "Don't Hold Back" harmony James wrote. She also plays rhythm guitar on that song.

Those are the people on that record.

What it sounds like

If a form makes us choose a genre, psychological post-punk and art rock get closest.

We call it psychological because we are not tripping. We are diving deep into the subconscious together through collaborative surrealist automatism.

The blues is still in James's hands even when the rhythm turns post-punk or industrial. The vocals can be close and bare. The next section may be much heavier. We know what the modes and chords are called, but instinct usually gets there first.

In these songs, a prayer can also be satire, and an absurd line can still carry something real.

We kept writing

James was sick for years and received diagnoses that did not explain what was happening. He was hospitalized during psychosis in 2019 and diagnosed with celiac disease in March 2025. The untreated illness was a driving force behind years of psychological symptoms that wrecked his mind in ways he would not wish on his worst enemy.

Treatment gave our family some room to breathe again, and all it took was a diet change.

We kept writing through illness, jobs, bills, children, dishes, and the rest of ordinary life. That is the life many of these songs came out of. Writing was one of the only ways the Lees could cope with mental illness and, eventually, begin to overcome it.

Why we paint our faces

One side may laugh while the other looks like it has been crying for a week. James and Anna wear those faces while singing about birth and death.

James found part of that idea while reading Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk's account as conveyed by John G. Neihardt. The image that stayed with him was truth arriving with one face suffering and one face laughing. Heyoka names a specific Lakota sacred and ceremonial role. We respect that, and we are inspired by it.

Anna's Jester comes from a different history. The court fool was the person allowed to mock the king and keep power and ego in check. Both images shaped our Grinning Jesters.

The Last Grin

Our smiling skull is The Last Grin. We call it Grin.

James calls it "the last smile anyone will ever have before our bones dissolve."

Listen

Hear the music

Read the lyrics

Vinyl and CD

Hand-drawn merch

Press, radio, podcasts, and shows: music@quantaphoria.com