My Band Story (part 1)

One of my great aspirations ever since I was a teenager was to play in a rock band. It all started when I began listening to music somewhere in my early teen years. I began with pop radio and some light rock music. There were certain songs that caught my attention, and I would listen to them over and over. At some point I was introduced to contemporary Christian bands, like Carmen, DC Talk, and Petra. Once I began to listen to Petra, my love for rock music was born. Then I learned about bands like Whitecross and Bride, and the style just kept getting heavier. I really identified with the passion and intensity of these heavier bands. They screamed like they had something important to say. Eventually I discovered more mainstream bands like Metallica, and I never looked back. I had become a hard rock fan.

I learned to play drums and guitar during my teenage years, and nothing made me feel quite so alive as playing along with some good rock or metal albums. I learned drums first through concert band in school, where I learned rudiments and technique for snare drum. Around 7th grade, my band teacher introduced me to the drum set and I was hooked immediately. I learned for a couple years through private lessons, which was mostly swing and jazz focused. I liked that stuff okay, but the excitement and creativity came by mostly listening to rock bands like Petra, Bride, Metallica, and Pantera, while trying to copy the drum parts as I listened and played along. I eventually got my own drum set at home, and I practiced for hours and hours, driving my family and all my neighbors crazy. I learned guitar after my friend let me borrow his electric guitar without the amp for a week, and gave me a chord chart to memorize. At the end of the week I was ready to learn more, and my fingers hurt like crazy, but I wanted to get good at it so I kept going. My grandparents bought me an acoustic guitar as a birthday present, and I was all set. I practiced the heck out of that guitar and I still have it, though some of the frets are completely worn down and don’t work anymore. Eventually I saved up enough money through my job of making doughnuts at 3 o’clock in the morning, and bought myself an electric guitar with a little 10 watt amp that I got through a magazine sale. I was on my way to rock and roll! I learned guitar mostly by listening to Metallica, Tom Petty, Steve Miller Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and some others, trying to figure out the parts by ear. Tablature was rare in those days, and you usually had to pay for it, so I figured stuff out by ear the best I could.

I did some jamming with some friends in high school, and we even did a couple performances at school functions, which was fun, but I really wanted to get into a "real" band in college. Lo and behold, during my freshmen year I happened to meet some guys who were looking for a drummer and I was available, eager, and growing my hair out, which made me look a little bit rebellious. We started practicing and before long we had a long list of songs that were ready to perform, or at least we could get through them without too many mess-ups. We started out performing at any function on campus that would allow us. Amazingly, we had several opportunities. Some included shows with friends that had their own ska/punk band (Threefold Cord) that had already been playing for a couple years, so we had a good avenue to get our stuff out. The only problem was the ska band’s guitar player used to fill in as the drummer for the band that I was now in. I had replaced him since I could commit more fully, and I was actually quite a bit better at drums than he was. I think he was bitter about it, but he shouldn’t complain since he was already in another band.

Now whenever you get into a band for the first time, you think you are pretty awesome, and we were no exception. I wrote an email to everyone I knew bragging about the fact that I was in a band. And the reality is, we had worked pretty hard on our songs and put our whole hearts into the creation process. We just downright loved playing music and spent all of our free time trying to create new stuff and record it, so when you’re that excited about something you just want to tell everyone about it. My hometown of about 5,000 people caught wind of the fact that I was "in a band," and someone informed the local radio station, which then called me up to have an interview! When they called me, I was completely stunned. So there I was in my dorm room, not being familiar with how to do interviews about my newfound fame. When the radio guy asked me questions, I gave these short, one-word answers and then there was a lot of awkward silence. At certain points the guy just said, "it's okay, we can do some editing." My dad ended up getting a copy of the interview on a cassette tape after it was aired, and gave it to me for a souvenir.

My wonderful parents... they were supportive all the way, even though we really didn't sound that great, and they certainly weren't fans of our punk/teeny-bopper/sometimes-hard-rock/pseudo-alternative sound. But they cheered me on anyway.

"Greater love hath no one than this, that they tolerate their son's annoying band music." -2 Opinions 3:16