A PERSONAL NOTE FROM JEFF WENZEL

I've been sitting on this email for almost a month.

Not because I didn't know what to say — but because I wasn't sure I was ready to say it out loud. Some of you know me from the entrepreneur world. Some of you are from crowdfunding. A few of you go back even further. But most of you have never heard this part of my story.

So here it is.

Before the pitch decks. Before the campaigns. Before all of it, I tried to be a rock star.

Right after the old Napster era, I co-founded a band called The Sugar People with my friend Jacob Stamper. We recorded in a farmhouse out in southeast Michigan. We toured. We did everything you're supposed to do. We released three albums — The Ray Stable Story (2003), the self-titled Sugar People, and The Sugaroses Collection (2011).

And then the steam ran out. Kids were born. Life got complicated in the best and hardest ways. The band went quiet.

For fifteen years, there were no posts. No shows. No announcements. The songs lived on Spotify — quietly, to almost no one — and that was enough.

Until it wasn't.

About four months ago, I started pulling the music back out of storage — metaphorically and literally. And once I started, I couldn't stop.

Here's what we've done:

Sour Moon — New Album. Ten new songs. Downtempo, atmospheric, eclectic — with just enough pop and funk threaded through to keep things interesting. This is the most fully realized music we've ever made.

Under the Covers — New EP. We invited musicians from around Detroit, didn't tell them the songs in advance, and had one night to produce three covers from scratch. The results were genuinely surprising. All three are worth your time.

The Full Catalog — Remastered. All three original albums have been remastered and, in part, re-recorded. The originals were limited by budget and the era's equipment. That's no longer an excuse. They sound the way they were always supposed to sound.

Not sure where to start? Here's your roadmap.

Start with the self-titled Sugar People album from 2008 — it's the best entry point into the world. Then try Under the Covers — short, surprising, fun. Dig into The Ray Stable Story when you want to go deeper. Then let Sour Moon show you where we're headed.

Find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Tidal, and YouTube Music.

(Disclaimer: ignore the darker orange TSP album for now. Our distributor can’t find the title to delete it.)

Going back through this catalog reminded me of something I'd almost forgotten.

The Sugar People were never just one voice. Over the course of those three albums — 2001 to 2011 — we had an extraordinary roster of vocalists move through this project. Sitting with the remastered versions and hearing them again for the first time in years, I honestly couldn't believe what we had.

Jacob Stamper. Un'eka, who came down from Chicago and brought something we couldn't have manufactured if we tried. Lulu Dahl. Brandy Sweat. Willie P. Karla Velikan. Selina Guzman Pengelly. Jacob Gold.

Eight voices. One project. Across a decade.

Remastering this music wasn't just a technical exercise — it was a reminder of how many people gave something real to these recordings. Every one of those performances deserved to be heard properly. Now they will be.

And yes — we're talking about playing live again.

Nothing to announce yet. But conversations are happening. Pieces are moving. If that's something you'd want to see, hit reply and tell me where you are.

I'm sharing all of this because you've been in my corner for a while — through the entrepreneur years, the crowdfunding world, whatever chapter you found me in. This feels like the right place to share something that's been much longer in the making.

Go listen. Tell me what you think. And if something moves you, share it with one person who'd get it.

Thank you for being here.

— Jeff

Jeff "Fuzzy" Wenzel, Co-founder, The Sugar People