"Because love came out of nowhere/And drove away the dark in me." "My Lover, the Floodlight"

Like many musicians before him, 21-year-old Jakob Johnson's, The Record Life, debut album, Into the Sea of Something Big, was inspired by the genesis of a romantic relationship… the only difference is, in his case, it was with a woman who never existed.

With a sound influenced in equal parts by his so-called Record Life of listening and playing, Johnson's audacious bow represents a marriage of his own musical influences, from Queen's operatic scope ("Alone In The Atmosphere"), the Beatles' harmonic melodies ("Step On Your Own"), Elton John's storytelling warmth ("Not the Same") and Death Cab for Cutie's intricate miniaturist pop ("My Lover, the Floodlight").

"It's a tribute to all my favorite artists, genres and songs, an homage to each of them," explains Johnson, who picked up the nickname Tumbleweed as a child growing up in the tiny western Arizona town of Cave Creek, north of Scottsdale. "I wanted to capture that cumulative feeling I've always had from listening to my favorite music."

Johnson was introduced to music early on by his father, who he would go on road trips with accompanied by a mixtape soundtrack consisting of The Beatles, Lynyrd Skynard, The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Green Day, and Social Distortion. "I really grew to love the melodies within the music," he says. By the time Jake was 7, he was a member of the Central Phoenix based choir, touring here in the states and internationally.

"We sang a huge variety of stuff from early American soul songs to classical songs that were hundreds of years old and entirely in Latin, but they were always a cappella, and they always had six-part harmonies," he says.

Within Into the Sea of Something Big, produced by The Pharmacy's Kraig "Sqrl" Tyler and Bret Mazur, former members of Crazy Town, and Lee Miles (Tickle Me Pink), lies the story of its creation. The album starts with Jake's first, fateful trip to L.A. ("Step on Your Own") and learning his craft ("Alone in the Atmosphere") and journeys through the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction, Cruel Intentions-meets-Vertigo long-distance online affair he carried on with a woman who deceived him for close to a year. During the time he worked on the album, Jake went from sleeping on the dining room floor of a house in Hollywood with eight other people to living in the back seat of his car, but he never gave up.

At about this time, Jake met a woman on MySpace who claimed she was a professional snowboarder and a fan of his music, offering him a place to stay in L.A., then supposedly suffering a series of mishaps, including losing both her parents, getting into a near-fatal car accident, claiming she was raped and losing her house. Despite his own friends' skepticism, Johnson found himself falling in love with the voice on the other end of the telephone, until he discovered, quite by coincidence, that the pictures she had been sending him were of a college student at New York City's Loyola Marymount. And for the girl he had fallen in love with, she actually lived in North Carolina and wasn't a snowboarder at all.

"She did a number on me," laughs Jake. "At least 11 of them. And there just so happens to be 11 songs on the record. Go figure."

From the first falling in love ("Got Me Good"), to feeling the shock of hearing about the car crash ("Head in My Hands") to the realization she wasn't who she said she was ("Not the Same") and the vow to walk away ("Write This Down"), Johnson pours his heart into his strange tale of love lost, found and lost again on MySpace, Facebook and iChat, a true, 21st century romance.

"I want to let everyone know, as dark as it gets, it's gonna get light again one day," Jake says of the experiences that led to the recording. "Everything's gonna be alright. I've been through some serious emotional turmoil. I thought nothing could ever get worse, but it did…over and over and over and over again. It can get bad, but I promise it will get better. Just keep your head up. It will turn out OK."

On the epic "My Lover, the Floodlight," with its tribal drums and keyboard plunking, Johnson admits he was listening to Death Cab for Cutie when he wrote the song, "My interpretation of how a perfect relationship with my ideal would feel…just being with a smart girl who is as good-looking as she is intellectual."

In the end, though, for Jake Johnson and The Record Life, it's all about the song.

"If there's a part that doesn't make the whole song better, then it comes out," he explains. "If there was a single goal on the album, it was to showcase these songs the way they deserve, and not let anything get in the way. Even it it's the most 'get-you-off' musical part ever."

For the sequel to The Record Life's Into the Sea of Something Big, Jake is ready to take the show on the road… hopefully to a town near you.

"More than anything, I'm looking forward to playing these songs live," he says, with videos of his performances already available at www.youtube.com/therecordlifemusic.