My story began at age 4 when an ambitious grandpa and dad put a toyishly small fiddle in my reluctant hands. I endured the rosin dusted sidelines for about 10 years in various, monthly opry bands before hearing the siren-like call of another stringed instrument – one of more power, edge and even flaunting two extra strings. My rock savior came to be in the form of shaggy blonde hair and flannel – a miscreant by the simple name of Kurt. I instantly and unapologetically cased my fiddle and bow for a hard earned Gibson Firebrand guitar (a poor man’s Les Paul). No more sawing away on the side-stage of 19th century school house thinking about how to get to the next level of Super Mario Bros. I had found my calling, or so I thought. I say “unapologetically cased my fiddle”, but here I would have to apologize. I didn’t hate the fiddle. But at the time, it wasn’t mine. It had been put into my hands. The guitar and center microphone had been found. By me. An uncovered treasure that was mine to help mold me.
The next many years found me bouncing aimlessly from one calling to the next – a directionless kid searching for his niche in life, torn between career and art. Art won out, but I still had no grasp of it. I spent my entire youth trying to be someone else, to sound like someone else and better yet, to look like someone else. It wasn’t until well into my twenties that I began to find my sound and afterword, my identity.
I was a dark, little loner as a young child, and my tendencies have not strayed very far as an adult. I spent the better part of my days in my head, creating fantasy worlds and wrestling with the demons lurking within those lands. Fast forward into adulthood, my music is brooding, dark, sometimes twisted and always, at least with best intention, real. I write how I feel and that is the gist of it. It’s my therapy, my confessions, and the audience is my therapist. I also, unintentionally, kept within the confines of the solitary theme, at least on stage. What started out to be an interim solo show until building a band, breathed life that I did not expect. Putting a drum underneath an already stomping foot evolved into ever-growing contraptions, the likes of which Bert of Mary Poppins would be proud.
I had found my voice (for better or worse), armed with old bastardized guitars, hand-me-down fiddles and banjos, home-made contraptions with just enough tension on a string to be considered an instrument and any random percussive item I can get my hands or feet on. I call it an Obnoxious Southern-Gothic Scary-Blues Revival-Punk One-Man-Band with a heavy amped edge, preaching the gospel of some new kind of depraved music.
