Local musicians do a lot in their free time, like work a real job, but for one artist free time is just more time to do what he loves. Make music.

Josh Mullen, lead singer of Cinna the Poet, has been playing acoustic sets on his own for almost two years now. But recently he stepped it up a notch and did an entire solo project in between his busy schedule of open mic nights, band gigs and solo sets.

“I didn’t think he was actually going to go through with it,” said Tim “DJ” Yockey, Cinna the Poet DJ. “I thought he was just talking about writing a song. But for a couple of weeks every time I saw him he had a new song. He was working on it like crazy. Then all of a sudden he had a full-length album.”

But The Sickness is Coming, Mullen’s post-zombie apocalypse concept album, isn’t what local music listeners are used to from Mullen.

“All of the songs have a reggae influence,” Mullen said. “But it’s different because it’s not just me with an acoustic guitar. It’s me with an electric bass, drum loops, the opportunity to do my own back-up vocals and I mixed it all myself.”

Mullen did use a little help from a few friends to make the album complete. DJ Yockey scratched on a few songs and Mullen used a few other friends to play the voices of random zombies. But the entire album is made up of Mullen originals.

And despite all of the effort Mullen is putting into his acoustic shows and his recent album, he said he still enjoys Cinna the Poet shows the most.

“It’s the most fun I could ever have under any circumstance,” Mullen said.

Nor does he believe his side project hurts his performances with his band.

“If one were succeeding a lot more than the other than I could say if it was helping or not,” Mullen said. But the band seems to be doing just as good as it’s always been and the same goes for my own stuff.”

But just because Mullen is putting together CDs on his own and continues to play with Cinna doesn’t mean he is going to cut back on doing local acoustic shows.

“About every other week I’ll be playing an acoustic set somewhere,” Mullen said. “It’s how I make my money. I really just love playing around town as much as possible and right now I’ve got a lot of things going on.”

Mullen currently hosts open mic night at Kitchen Pass every Wednesday. He takes turns hosting the open mic nights every Thursday at The Tropicana, and he has several shows booked with Cinna the Poet in the next month.

For information on how to buy an album, please contact Mullen through his MySpace page or ask him at one of his local shows.

“Just come out it’s a good time,” Mullen said.