"It's been a long journey, long in the coming," Perkins admits, when he discusses the album, and it took a serious detour on September 11, 2001, when his mother, a Passenger on the ill-fated American Airlines FLIGHT 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, perished in the attack on New York City's twin towers a day before the ninth anniversary of his father's death. Ash Wednesday was shaped in part by that event and its aftermath.