When Michigan rockers Taproot [ tickets ] were dropped from their major label, they took a philosophical look at their situation. Lead singer Stephen Richards documented the group's journey on Taproot's latest album, "Our Long Road Home."

"I guess the title is an overview of the situation we found ourselves in the last time we were out on the road promoting [2005's 'Blue-Sky Research']," he said "We were just finding out we were let go from Atlantic and we were kind of pissed off, but mostly excited because they really didn't do anything for us the last time around at all. It was a real uncomfortable situation.

"'The Long Road Home' was, 'Look, we're going to go home. We're going to do this our way. The way we want to do it and how it should be done. We're not going to stop.'"

So, Taproot found a new home at Velvet Hammer Music, a record label that is an offshoot of the group's management company.

"Instead of doing the managerial 17-percent fee, we're just going 50-50 on this album," said Richards via telephone from "somewhere outside of Alabama." "We both fronted half the money up front, so we're planning on reaping the benefits evenly, as well. They've been with us since they signed us in late 1999. They're our family and that's why we thought it would be fun to try something different."

For the album, Taproot--which also includes guitarist Mike DeWolf, bassist Phil Lipscomb and drummer Jarrod Montogue--stayed close to home, hiring Saline, MI-based producer Tim Patalan (Sponge) to turn the knobs. Patalan's studio is 15 minutes from Richards' home.

"Once we decided it was going to be us and Velvet Hammer, at least, to fund the record--not knowing if we'd go to a major and sign to an indie afterward--we wanted to make sure we did it as good, yet cost effectively, as possible," Richards said. "Moving to LA for a year-and-a-half wasn't gonna be the way to do that. Luckily, our management knew his management. And Mike and I, growing up in Ann Arbor, always knew of Tim Patalan. He set up a meeting. We met with him. We showed him a couple ideas that we were thinking about doing and he was full on board. Luckily for us, it worked out really good."