Editing Mike Watt (section)

===''The Secondman's Middle Stand''===
{{Main|The Secondman's Middle Stand}}

Watt's third solo album ''[[The Secondman's Middle Stand]]'', inspired by both his 2000 illness and one of his favorite books, [[Dante]]'s ''[[The Divine Comedy]]'',<ref>{{cite web|last=Thrill|first=Scott|title=Punk Prophet|url=http://www.alternet.org/story/19257/punk_prophet|publisher=[[AlterNet]]|access-date=May 29, 2013|archive-date=October 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019004056/http://www.alternet.org/story/19257/punk_prophet|url-status=dead}}</ref> was released in 2004; one reviewer writes that the album is a "harrowing, funny, and genuinely moving stuff from a true American original".<ref>[{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r704380/review|pure_url=yes}} allmusic ((( The Secondman's Middle Stand > Review )))<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>  For the first time since the Minutemen, Watt recorded the album with an "all-Pedro band", [[Mike Watt and the Secondmen]], consisting of organist Pete Mazich and drummer Jerry Trebotic, along with former [[that dog.]] vocalist [[Petra Haden]].

While promoting and touring behind ''The Secondman's Middle Stand'', Watt announced plans for future recordings, stating that he intended to record as frequently as he did in the Minutemen days for as long as he could.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite web |url=http://www.bassplayer.com/article/econo-101/Apr-07/26360 |title=Econo 101 |publisher=Bassplayer.com |access-date=September 14, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110608154720/http://www.bassplayer.com/article/econo-101/apr-07/26360 |archive-date=June 8, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Watt would part amicably with Columbia/[[Sony BMG]] in 2005, after 14 years as both a solo artist and as one-third of Firehose.