The Start of It All

Growing up, I remember listening to a lot of music around the house. My dad would always be playing tapes in car rides or there would be some sort of song playing in the house, definitely a lot of Beatles. However, there was never really a point up until the time I started to play music where I thought or said, "I want to be the person who does that". There was definitely a time where I thought acting was the coolest thing ever and was pretty sure I'd end up in some sort of movie some day. In 5th grade, I started listening to more modern music and started getting into all of the punk music; Green Day, a lot of Green Day actually, some Ramones, bands like The White Stripes, The Clash, Nirvana, typical stuff like that. Those interests expanded into the punk bands that took a lot of pop influence and were really thriving at the time; The Academy Is, Fall Out Boy, all of those bands who gained a lot of success from a little website called Myspace. Sometime during the start of 6th grade, Green Day released a live DVD entitled "Bullet In A Bible". It seems I watched this DVD almost religiously. I was simply amazed at the level of performance and energy they each held to such high regard for the whole show. This definitely had some sort of influence on my choice of wanting to be a performer. Another great factor, I believe, is when my dad found out about a singer songwriter by the name of Steve Roth, who was from Alden. He took me to see him perform a few times and I think this is when I started to experiment with the idea of being a singer songwriter myself. Steve invited me to play with him a few times, to attend the open mic night that he hosted at Clarence Center Coffee Company, and even put up with me playing his own songs, before him, at his own shows. He would even go onto introducing me to his son, Joakim, who would then eventually become one of my best friends. 

So, at this point, I was aspiring to be a singer songwriter, performer of some sort, with no true outlet to such aspirations. My dad had already bought me a guitar, which I then taught myself how to play; single handedly the greatest thing I've ever done/accomplished...