My dad played guitar and during Friday night get-togethers he would invite everyone to play around the kitchen table. I always found that exciting; I thought it was a cool party trick. My dad had a big songbook of handwritten covers that he’d made by listening to songs, pausing and rewinding cassette tapes until he was “close enough”. I thought they were his originals for years until I asked. The parties would go into the early hours of the morning, and my sister Rylee and I would get our sleeping bags and pass out under the kitchen table while the party kept on.

My dad had tried to teach me some chords on the guitar but I didn’t have the patience so we’d always butt heads. It wasn’t until Grade 6 that I started to play. There was a lunch hour lesson on Fridays that I joined only due to the fact that a handful of my friends took part and I wanted to hang out. I found myself progressing and it became addictive. I’d come home and show my dad. He was pleased but I remember him saying, “If you’re going to play, you have to learn how to sing”.

This terrified my shy self. I didn’t like performing in front of anyone, but I decided to try it out regardless. To my surprise, I could do it! I could sing in key. That made learning more fun, being able to perform a whole song with melodies and lyrics, even if I had to do it from another room with the door closed so no one could see me.

My cousin and I formed a cover band when I was about 13. We just mainly played in the basement. Sometime in 2005, my dad bought my cousin and I tickets to Green Day’s “American Idiot” tour. This was my first concert and I was floored. I loved every part of it; seeing them on stage, playing their own songs to a stadium of fans. All that energy stuck with me. That was the moment I knew I wanted to make music.

About a month later I started writing my own original songs and started playing local shows. I haven’t stopped since. I was even lucky enough to sing with Green Day years later in Montreal, randomly on my birthday!