Chromatics first announced their new album Dear Tommy way back in December 2014. Fans waited and waited and waited some more, and although a fair number of tracks slowly trickled out, Dear Tommy still didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Recently, all of the songs we had heard disappeared from the internet, and now Echo Park Records’ Alexis Rivera, who manages Johnny Jewel, has explained why. Apparently, Chromatics mastermind Johnny Jewel suffered a near-death experience in 2015, after Dear Tommy was finished, which led him to destroy every copy of the record in existence and start rerecording it from scratch. And now that “we are getting closer to the release of the album,” Jewel wanted all of the old versions to be taken down:

Enough people have asked about Dear Tommy and the status of the album, I think it's time for an update https://t.co/5A3znJr4Fs

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

Christmas day 2015 Johnny almost died in Hawaii. I don't want to go into details, but I'm sure he'll discuss it in interviews at some point.

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

When he came back home to California he destroyed all copies of Tommy. 15K CDs & 10K vinyl in the Italians warehouse in Glendale, all gone

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

When we announced "Twin Peaks" in March, you can see some of those broken Tommy records https://t.co/Ink9W8hI24

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

Is it weird to destroy & delete your album once it's done? Fuck yes. It's also financially insane. But it wasn't the first time he's done it

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

March of 2011: Glass Candy was playing in Guadalajara & Johnny gave me a box of Kill For Love CDs. He wanted the album out later that month.

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

Then he got hired to score Drive, then that went absolutely snafu. Shit comes up all the time that changes things. Sometimes it's a blessing

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

Johnny destroyed the CDs & vinyl of that version of Kill For Love in April 2011. Publicly no one knew. But it kickstarted a creative streak

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

He worked more on Kill For Love, he worked on Symmetry's Themes, he worked on more music that I hope we'll hear sooner rather than later

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

He even referenced the other version of Kill For Love (and multiple changes) in an interview with @pitchfork in 2012 https://t.co/PZTySumQOU pic.twitter.com/8c7XBsS14l

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

.@pitchfork Anyway back to Johnny almost dying. After he went on another streak. Doing Tommy. Producing new acts like Heaven. Doing films & "Twin Peaks"

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

.@pitchfork As for Dear Tommy, now that we are getting closer to the release of the album, Johnny wanted the music from it to come down

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

.@pitchfork "Dear Tommy" has the same titles, same lyrics, same track order, as when it was announced Dec of 2014. Nothing's changed except it's better

— Alexis Rivera (@echoparkrecords) May 3, 2017

Looks like we may actually get Dear Tommy by, let’s say, 2020!