There were a few pivotal moments in my life that cemented how much I wanted to be a musician. I had been taking guitar lessons since about age 8 or 9 but I had my first taste of “success” at 11 years old, and boy was it intoxicating. I was the lead singer of my 6th grade band, The Keepers Of Peace, and somehow we were able to enter a local Battle of The Bands in Iowa City, where I was living at the time. We performed in front of a crowd of nearly 1,000 people and won second place among grown adults and professional bands. It was most likely the cuteness factor that led to our win (how do you crush the dreams of three 11-year-olds?) but it was the first time I ever felt like a “rockstar” and it made me want to chase this music dream forever.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school, where I was graduating from a public school in rural Vermont. Throughout my high school years, I’d played a lot of shows at my school auditorium and a few local events and venues, but never ventured out into the wider world. I got the opportunity to attend GRAMMY Camp, a camp run by the GRAMMY Foundation for kids interested in going into the music industry. While at GRAMMY Camp, I had the opportunity to perform at the GRAMMY Museum, meet legends like Ryan Seacrest and AJ McLean, and play at the historic El Rey Theater. Most importantly, I was around other people who all wanted a career in music, and it no longer felt like just a “fantasy”.

Finally, there was a turning point where my partner Greg and I realized we wanted to make music together. We had been dating for a year and were both singers but kept in our own lanes (I was doing the singer-songwriter thing and he was doing musical theater). On a whim we decided to host a cabaret, titled “You And Me (But Mostly Me)” at The Duplex in New York. The cabaret went over so well that we ended up doing it again in Greg’s hometown of Austin and later again for an off-Broadway series. We then happened to get a residency at the Nomo SoHo, where we had free reign to perform whatever we’d like for three hours every week. That allowed us to hone our craft and really learn how to vibe off each other. This eventually caught the eye of GRAMMY-winning producer Mr. Sonic, who signed us to his label and started producing what would turn into Fab The Duo's debut EP, Our Love Is Resistance.

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

For as long as I can remember, The Beatles have always been a part of my culture. I’ve always been disappointed not to be born during the 60s because I always loved this period for all that it brought for rock music.

My dad is a huge Beatles fan and he used to play their songs with the guitar and sing along. It is also with their songs that I started to learn English. At one point, I wanted to understand their lyrics (I am French) so I practiced my English with them! At 4 years old I was learning the piano, and I think that 4 years later I knew how to play “Let It Be” and “Hey Jude”. At 11 years old, when I learned how to play the guitar, I wanted to play “Blackbird” or the guitar riff of “Day Tripper”.

When I was about 13 years old, my dad offered me a ticket to go with him and see Paul McCartney live at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy (named Accor Arena nowadays) in Paris. It was a dream come true. When we arrived at the venue, the place was so crowded; many famous musicians and singers were in the audience (for example, Sting was there). Everyone was waiting for this epic performance and man, it was epic! 37 songs played! I was singing almost all the songs with him, not being able to sit down for more than two minutes on my chair because I was so involved in the show.

When he finished the first part with “Hey Jude” and I heard the entire crowd singing along, I just felt the tears coming. It was magic.

The very last song of the show, “The End”, was just a pure moment out of time and space. I felt so connected with his music and his performance; seeing him on stage just changed my perception of how I wanted to play music, and my vision of a band (he has really wonderful bandmates as well).

I saw him on stage one more time in the Stade de France 10 years later, and once again I was impressed by him. He was more than 70 years old, and he performed as if it was the first time he went on stage, with a smile on his face all along…

Photo courtesy of Fabian Di Corcia

It marks no surprise to family, friends, teachers or even enemies that I have chosen to pursue a career in music. As a kid, an early crop of red flags emerged as pigtailed performances as Baby Spice became a weekly meal of its own, to be served as an accompaniment to the roasted rack of lamb and garlic mashed potatoes of Sunday family dinner. 

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

It was 28 May 2002 at the Royal Spa Centre in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. I couldn’t believe the great Hank Marvin himself was going to be playing in our sassy little town...

Years earlier, at some tender age or other, I heard and saw on television a band full of guitars (and one drum set). Flashy red guitars they were. I was only little, and those men with those gorgeous red guitars were kind of doing a shuffle dance as they played. How didn’t they trip over? It was just a guitar sound, mind - no singing. They called themselves The Shadows. They did have someone who sang with them sometimes though and when he did, I turned it off. His name was Cliff Richard and was obviously trying to copy the King, Elvis Presley.

That guitar sound just stuck into my head and I desperately wanted one of those beautiful red guitars, especially the one Hank used with the lever that had a white knob at the end. I thought he used that to pick the strings with and didn’t realise that when he wobbled it, the notes quavered somewhat.

Then I heard more similar music from some guys called Jet Harris and Tony Meehan. Their “Diamonds” and “Scarlet O’Hara” were added to my music collection, along with “Dance On”, “Wonderful Land” and “Foot Tapper” (the latter three from The Shadows). It wasn’t until much later on that I found out Jet Harris and Tony Meehan used to be in The Shadows and even later on than that, Jet Harris was actually playing ‘lead bass’ for “Diamonds” and “Scarlet O’Hara”, not a Stratocaster! Needless to say, The Shadows and in particular, Hank Marvin, was my first love of music before the advent of The Beatles, then Led Zeppelin, then Dire Straits and so on.

Music has always been a very important part of my life since I was a child. I am not sure whether the fact that my parents took me to a Garth Brooks concert while I was still in-utero or just a natural instinct, but from the time I was actually cognitive, there has been something about music that makes me want to move and stop paying attention to the troubles around me. Growing up, my parents were always showing me a wide variety of music from Great Big Sea, being my first concert, all the way to The Ramones and everything in between. They wanted to make sure that as I became my own person I got to experience as much of the musical spectrum as possible so I could figure out where my own taste lived.

Though I always loved music, it wasn’t until I got to high school that I had an interest in actually playing and creating music. Trevor [Bowman, bassist], and I grew up together in a little rural town called Elmira, Ontario. Being such a small town, there really wasn’t much to do to keep young people busy, especially in the entertainment space; so we were forced to get a little more creative to sustain ourselves and stay out of trouble. This is going to sound extremely fantastical, but months after I started trying to teach myself how to play the guitar, I remember Trevor boldly suggesting while we were at school that it would be super cool if we started a band. He recommended that he buy a bass guitar and learn how to play since I already had a guitar at home. That was the beginning of our long journey together. After learning a few simple cover songs, we found some other friends who played music and started the first version of Excuses Excuses (called Stained Glass Army).

For Trev and I, when we hit the stage for the first few times, it was like a part of us woke up from a deep hibernation. We were absolutely hooked on the feeling of standing in front of a crowd, sharing our passion and getting to be whatever we wanted to be for those brief moments. It was the most energizing and relieving feeling we had ever experienced, and right away we knew we had found something special within ourselves that we needed to pursue. As we kept playing and learning, these feelings only got stronger to the point where we spent countless late nights talking in wonder about how we could find a way to turn our passion into a living, expressing that neither of us could really see ourselves being happy without it even though we had only been working at it for a few short years. That was the moment we knew we not only wanted, but needed, to make music.

After that we really started investing our time and money into music, even though many of the other members of our high school band began to move on. We ended up briefly going to school in Kingston, Ontario, where we met Jason [Nicoll, drummer] through friends at Trevor’s college after we hadn’t been active in several months. When we started hanging out with Jason it was an instant click, and as we began to practice with him, that love and need for playing was instantly reinvigorated. Though we didn’t know where it would take us at this point, we played our first official show as Excuses Excuses on the university campus with our good pals in a rock band called Kasador after practicing with Jay only a handful of times. It was surreal… Not only did Trevor and I feel like we came back to life, but I like to believe that was the moment that we helped ignite the spark of passion in Jay. Sure, we already knew that we needed the music, but that was the moment that we realized how and with whom we wanted to make music. That was the moment that we truly became Excuses Excuses.

I had played piano for many years, starting at the age of 5. My piano teacher was lovely, and I liked the music a lot. However, there was a connection missing that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Enter Travis Barker from Blink-182. I had just started junior high school at St. Andrews in North York. Blink-182's posters were everywhere, and soon their records were all I could listen to. “What's My Age Again” and “All The Small Things” were my anthems and Travis Barker my guru.

Up until that point, I had been playing French horn in the junior high school band. Not to knock on that instrument, as it's very difficult and its lush tones add a silkiness to the band's sonic aesthetic. However, I wasn't quite convinced that I was sitting on the right chair. Instead I would stare at the drum throne to my left, and with envy, look at the drummers and wonder and dream about what my life would be like if I was in their position.

So I grabbed some sparkling green drumsticks and a phonebook to practice on, and started my drumming journey with my teacher Goeff at Allegro Music. I was hooked and one year later I was the drummer of the school band, and the drummer of my own rock and roll band. I haven't looked back.


I come from a pretty musical family. My younger brother plays and my dad is a professional jazz musician. Some of my earliest memories of my dad were waving goodbye to him as he set off on tours and awaiting his return late at night, or hanging out in our at-home rehearsal room as he’d practice with his band. Growing up, even though he never forced any kind of music or music instruction on me, I always saw music as a life and career possibility. Although I’d fooled around on instruments around the house as a kid, I was always more enamoured with drawing and visual art, and at one point I considered pursuing that as a profession.

What firmly cemented me in music was when I discovered the social aspect of music-making. Making new friends who were equally as excited about jamming, listening to and writing music was unlike the introverted experience of drawing, and I loved the performance aspect of it - even though it terrified me for the longest time. For me, the social aspect of music is so built into the art itself. People often call music a language, but I always compare making music with someone like the language of dogs. You circle one another, sniff each other’s butts for a bit and then suddenly bolt in a race around the dog park. Or maybe you growl, or go belly up, just to see what the other will do. It’s that primal and visceral connection that cuts right through our prepared and polite social norms that makes music-making feel so rich, immediate and intimate.

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

I’m thinking I should re-title this article to “The Time I Bawled Like A Little Bitch At A Devin Townsend Show” because that might be closer to what actually happened.

I’ve always been very vocal about my love of Devin Townsend. As a musician, he is easily the one that influenced me the most since I discovered his music circa 2013. Since then, he has also helped provide the soundtrack to my life; his music has seen me go in and out of borderline abusive relationships, touring the UK with my band Novacrow, couch-surfing due to homelessness, and almost every other experience I’ve had. I have seen him at every opportunity I’ve had, even flying to Bulgaria to catch his set at an ancient roman amphitheatre!

On this occasion, however, I bawled like a schoolgirl mid-set. Tears of joy, mind you, but tears nevertheless. It was during his headline performance at Bloodstock Open Air 2021, specifically during the song “Spirits Will Collide”. Let’s take a look at what led up to that moment (insert dreamy glissando and wavy transition) …

That’s right, Bloodstock Open Air was one of the first major festivals to re-open after the COVID pandemic! Most international bands were still hesitant to tour or simply couldn’t get the paperwork in time, but fortunately Devin was not one of them. As a big fan of the guy, I had been following him throughout the past year and a half and he was clearly having a rough time with the pandemic situation. And he obviously wasn’t alone - regardless of your stance on the pandemic/lockdowns, the whole situation was rough on an awful lot of people.

Whilst I personally enjoyed the time off and found the first few months very peaceful and good for my mental health, it eventually started triggering anxious episodes that I had never really experienced before and it just started getting worse from there. So when the festival came round, I think most people were excited to just be getting away from things for a few days and pretend things were back to normal for a weekend.

That said, when Devin hit the stage I was several drinks in and SUPER excited for it. He didn’t have his usual band, so the whole stage show and sound was very stripped back, which gave the whole headline show a bit of a more intimate feel in some ways. He went through his usual set, and for me it was the first time I got to hear him play some Strapping Young Lad songs (songs from his metal band that he’s been saying since 2007 he would never play again) so already emotions were high. Once “Deadhead” started playing (a slow burning, eight-minute, epic love song), I could feel the emotional tension rising as everyone was just so dang happy to be there, listening to this hugely inspirational man scream his lungs out about how much he loves his wife.

Eventually he started riffing an intro for “Spirits Will Collide” whilst talking about the whole previous year. Given the strong and uplifting anti-suicide theme to the whole song, I knew he was going to pull all the strings out for this little ditty. He invited a crowd of people onto the stage, along with a giant gorilla and elephant to parade around the stage as he started belting out the lyrics. I was just as happy as a clam, gleefully singing along until the sudden reconciliation of my own struggles with mental health, what this previous year meant to the world, the uplifting message of the song in question, and the fact that I have had such a fun time away from the everyday tribulations of life, all hit me at once and I started crying. And clearly I wasn’t the only one who had these thoughts as people all around the crowd were also crying. The rest of the set went on and it felt like a magical afterglow - everyone was just so damn happy to be there; Devin himself also seemed so excited to be on that stage. It was just a wonderful performance for everyone involved. 10/10, would cry again.

Photo courtesy of Bob Holtsman

Music has always been a huge part of my life since I was a kid, thanks to my dad's incredible vinyl collection. You could hear Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Elvis and James Brown blasting 24/7 in our household or during family cookouts. Over the years, as my siblings got older, it became 80s ghetto blasters wearing out tapes of Led Zeppelin, The Police and Prince. I had no idea how lucky of a child I was to be exposed to all of this amazing music and that my passion for it was growing.

By the time I got to grade 6, my oldest brother, Efren, was already touring in a cover band playing in small towns and bars in our city of Saskatoon (hometown of Joni Mitchell, by the way). By grade 8, I was their lighting tech at their high school dances. The band's school bus full of their giant clunky PA system and lights was parked in our driveway and our basement was their rehearsal space. I would often daydream about doing what my big bro did for a living, being a professional touring musician.

So in high school, I started my own band where I was the lead singer/bassist and began writing original songs. My bandmates and I would sneak into the basement and secretly rehearse using my brother's band's gear for months in order to audition for the big annual high school Variety Night. To our school, it was a pretty big deal - a ticketed talent show that was open to the public in our 250 capacity theatre. Despite there being intimidating senior bands, we passed our audition and got in!

The night of the big show, we were scheduled to close by performing last. As the lights dimmed and the anticipation built up, we stepped onto the stage and did our best rendition of "Free Fallin’" by Tom Petty. Girls started screaming and as we played our last note, the crowd cheered so loudly and gave us a real standing ovation. We felt like the freakin’ Beatles! I was on cloud nine and didn't want the night to end. That was the moment I knew I wanted to make music.

Fours years later, I got signed to Warner/Atlantic with my next band, Wide Mouth Mason, and we were opening for The Rolling Stones. I definitely made the right choice to pursue music because 25 years later, I'm making the best music I've ever made and having more fun than ever with my new band, The Steadies!

From a very young age, I knew I wanted to be a singer, but it wasn’t until I moved to New York City and started meeting other artists that I knew wholeheartedly that I could be a performer and make music for a career.

I grew up singing in church and school choir. As a pre-teen, I knew instinctively how to channel my emotions into song. Singing has always given me great joy and I would sing for hours. I applied to talent shows and I performed where I could without a car, but I never fully felt supported enough to believe that I could make it as a professional.

When it came time for college, I chose to study marketing because I saw the success that my grandpa had in business and I wanted the same for myself. I had no idea that music school was an option at the time. I had been sewing my own clothes and even sold some of my shirts around town to a few local boutiques so I thought that with a marketing degree, I could learn to run my own fashion business.

I quickly became burnt out from going to school while working and holding a leadership role in my sorority. For the first time in my life, I was ready to quit. I was having constant headaches and was secretly depressed. I started therapy and decided to take summer courses so I could graduate early and move to a larger city to ‘start my life’. Looking back I can see that college was something that was expected of me and not necessarily something I wanted to do.

After I graduated, I sold my car and moved to Italy for nearly a year. I struggled to support myself with babysitting jobs and teaching English. I landed in Brooklyn with just enough money to sublet a room for one month in Williamsburg. I continued to babysit, took on restaurant jobs and any other kind of work I could find to pay my bills so I could intern for the global fashion PR firm Karla Otto. Even with all the glamorous parties and clothing, I quickly realized that the fashion industry was not where I wanted to be and I felt very lost.

I started dating a guitar player and writing songs again. I found a local Craigslist ad for a backup singer in an R&B group out of Newark and I auditioned. I performed with them and another folk duo just for fun. I was of the mindset that I was automatically disqualified from becoming a professional musician because I had no official training for it. I jumped around from bartender job to art job to marketing job, but I finally started to feel like I had found my purpose.

Three years into my time in New York City, I decided to travel to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival outside of Tennessee with some girlfriends. I saw LP perform on a smaller stage and I was mesmerized by their voice. It was a music festival experience that any aspiring artist could dream of. By the end of it, I was convinced that I would not attend another music festival until I was performing at it. I continued to teach myself guitar and focused on writing my own songs. At this point, all of my roommates were making music and I was warming up to the idea of performing.

The following year I met an artist named Sky. She had made $40,000 from a sync placement of one of her songs and was not even well-known as an artist. The two of us became quick friends over music and fashion and I ended up driving cross-country with her to help her move out to Los Angeles. I flew back to New York with a changed perspective. If she could make money from music, so could I…

That October I gave my first performance for Greenpoint Open Studios and I haven’t looked back since. My focus has been music.

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

It all started with a 4-year-old girl falling in love with the album Bring Me To Life, or “the CD with the pretty girl’s face on it”.

Even at a young age I was drawn into the soothing voice of Amy Lee, accompanied by these classical and rock aspects perfectly intertwining together to make a movement and/or masterpiece. I had a hard upbringing and really relied on the lyrics of Evanescence who, for me, felt like she was speaking to me. Funny enough, her solo single “Speak To Me” is one of my favorites, especially the live version.

So there is 4-year-old me, who heard Evanescence once and all of my hopes and dreams were laid out in front of me. I started piano lessons that same year and started singing at age 7. I had so many obstacles in my way and people who didn’t believe in me, and each year my confidence plummeted a bit more. Around the age of 10, my mental stability really took a turn for the worst and I was just this sad, angry little kid. That year I started using piano and singing as a coping mechanism. I would play for hours instead of inflicting self harm or to distract my mind. I started to write my own songs then as well, but the first song I always seemed to play when my fingers touched any keyboard was “My Immortal”. I’ve never related to a song more. As a kid I was so tired of being there and I was suppressed by all of my fears. Every word she sang hit home for me.

Now we fast forward about 20 years, and I walk into a bar that changes my whole life. My cousin and I went out for a girls night and there was Leaving Eden up on stage; the first time I ever cried at a concert. The first thing I noticed was that the band was female-fronted, and although a different sound than Evanescence, they were epic! I knew then that I was meant to be up on that stage with them.

They played an original song - it might have been “How I Miss You” - and I had tears falling, goosebumps; I was truly moved.

Then BOOM! I am playing keys for Leaving Eden. BAM! Singing and starting to write songs for Leaving Eden. Drum Roll Please! Now I am seeing Evanescence live for the first time.

I was counting down the days until the concert before the pandemic postponed it. I was so upset for weeks. When the time finally came, I was absolutely blown away.

Having such high expectations, I almost expected them not to be met. No one is that good. But Amy Lee took my expectations and threw them out the window with the first song they played. When the grand piano came out for “My Immortal”, I knew what was coming. There I was, standing in the crowd, watching my life played in front of me through her song. I think I sang the whole dang song with her. It was as if nothing else mattered; I was completely entranced in the moment. It’s crazy how music literally feeds your soul. I needed that. In that moment, it was like my life finally had meaning. I finally made it somewhere and I almost felt like I owed some of that to Evanescence. I was so emotional, I didn’t even notice when I began to cry. With my hands up in the sky, I lived in the moment and sang my heart out.

There were so many moments where I literally saw myself up there. I never realized how similar we were in our performance styles at the keyboards, even the way she moves while singing. It’s like without even knowing it, I conditioned myself my whole childhood with her music and it has made me a better artist now. I could only dream of opening for Evanescence and sharing a stage with Amy Lee, although a long shot I will never give up hope!

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!

Motivated by my favorite bands Rush, Van Halen and Led Zeppelin, I took up the drums at age 13. I started taking lessons and was immediately hooked on playing music, jamming with my friends after school and drumming along to my favorite songs. My drum teacher introduced me to the rudiments and jazz, and I developed musically and became a decent - but by no means great - drummer.

I played throughout college but never really went full-on until I graduated and decided I wanted to get more serious and put together a band. Around that time, I was living in San Francisco with one of my best friends and jamming buddies from growing up in Atlanta, and he had an acoustic guitar. I taught myself a few chords and immediately songs started coming out of me even though I could barely play the instrument. I would say that was the moment that I knew I wanted to make music on a serious level.

I had joined a local band on drums and was beginning to get more serious with them, playing bars around the Bay Area and Northern California as well as doing a few tours of Colorado. I spent most of my time during those years playing guitar five to six hours a day and constantly writing songs. The guitar and songwriting came to me much more naturally than the drums, and once I had gotten rhythm guitar up and running, I bought some scale books and started working on lead guitar trying to find the sounds of my heroes: Mark Knopfler, Jerry Garcia and David Gilmour.

After five years of constant practice, I was ready to switch to playing guitar and singing my songs in the bands I was in instead of playing drums, so I left the band I was in and started Seconds On End, where I learned to play live and in studio as well as produce and engineer records.

Photo courtesy of Andrew Thomases

My father was always very into classic rock when I was younger. He constantly had the radio on or albums on the turntable (yes, vinyl back then in the 70s). He got me hooked on The Beatles at a young age, but it was when he took me to see Beatlemania on Broadway when I realized I wanted to be like Paul McCartney.

After that show – maybe even on the drive home – I asked my dad if I could have his old bass guitar. He gave it to me, but I didn’t even have an amplifier. I figured out a way to plug it into our home stereo and I remember almost blowing out the speakers. I tried my hardest to teach myself, but, alas, I had no idea what I was doing.

Coincidentally, that summer I was headed off to summer camp for eight weeks. I took the bass guitar with me, but I didn’t have any specific plans to take lessons or even play. One of my friends, however, was excited to try out for the camp’s rock band as a lead singer. He came back all excited that he got the gig, but he said that the camp had a shortage of bass players. He had mentioned me to the head of the rock shop, but said I didn’t know how to play.

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with the electric guitar. I remember my Grade 1 teacher telling me "no more making guitars" in art class. I'd use a ruler for the neck and whatever I could for the body and the head. After being told no more guitars, I literally made another guitar and tried to pass it off as an ax. I remember this as if it were yesterday. I can't remember what I ate for lunch, but I remember things like this. My parents caught onto my interest in music, but insisted I do a year of piano before trying guitar. After the year of piano was over, I no longer cared to play an instrument. I hated it. But only temporarily. I think I was only 5 or 6 years old, so it was hard to concentrate.

The moment I knew I wanted to be on stage for real wasn't until some years later. Again, I remember this as if it were yesterday. We were watching a music awards show on TV as a family and a band came on. The singer was beating his guitar like it owed him money, and every word he sang into the mic was accompanied with a shower of spit. I watched and listened in awe. I had never heard anything like it. I looked at my older sister and said, "Who is this?" She said, "Some band called Green Day." That was the moment I knew. I was in grade 6.

Before discovering Green Day, I was listening to the stuff passed down from my older sister, and what my parents were into. My parents used to blare Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits and Michael Jackson. ALL FANTASTIC. My sister was blaring Guns N' Roses, The Doors, Metallica and Portishead. ALL FANTASTIC. The thing these all had in common to me, though, was that their musicianship was at a level that felt unachievable. There was no way I could even dream of being able to play the guitar riffs I was hearing from Metallica, Guns N' Roses and Dire Straits. But Green Day changed all of that. It was my introduction to punk rock, and I was sold.

On my 14th birthday, my mom bought me my first guitar. It was an acoustic, with action so high you could barely play a note, but it was a start. I banged away on that thing for the summer and then I decided I wanted an electric guitar. The only thing I had of any value was the dirt bike I had cut lawns for three summers to buy. I sold it and used the money to buy a Yamaha electric guitar with a 10 watt amp. I also bought a Nirvana Nevermind TAB book. This book taught me the most important thing you need to know when starting out: the power chord. It all snowballed from there. This was at the beginning of grade 8. I spent months in my room pretending to be Billie Joe Armstrong, and by the end of that school year, I had a band that played in the talent show. We played "Going To Pasalacqua" by Green Day. From what I remember, it didn't suck. Although I'm not 100% sure. Ha.

After I sold my dirt bike for a guitar, my best friend Luke (having no one left to ride with) sold his dirt bike too, and bought a drum kit. He and I have been playing music together ever since. You'll be able to hear him playing on some of my yet-to-be-released material. We started out as a punk band, and as we became more comfortable with our instruments, the music evolved. We started listening to some heavier stuff like Minor Threat and eventually Slayer. As we inched through high school, we started sounding more and more like a hardcore band. As well as writing original material, we were covering Minor Threat, Strife and One King Down. We had a pretty cool little scene happening in our high school with us and a few other bands renting out halls and putting on shows. Besides our hardcore band, there was a funk band, a punk band and a straight rock band that sounded like Tool and Smashing Pumpkins. In between each band, there would be a different DJ spinning records. It wasn’t until years later that I realized what a unique experience we’d created.

By the time high school was done, Luke’s brother, Josh, had joined the band and he started singing the majority of the leads while I focused on lead guitar and singing harmonies. He was Layne and I was Jerry. We were going to be the next Alice In Chains. We spent over a decade writing and recording music together. We toured Canada, recorded a demo in Los Angeles and shared the stage with some of our heroes. While this was happening, I was building a career as a cover artist playing bars, restaurants and whatnot. This seemed like the best way for me to pay the rent while pursuing our goals. Our band eventually called it a day, but we all still hang out together regularly.

This brings us to today. Ta da!

Thanks for reading,
Grant

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

I always wondered how people become followers of "cult bands". Well, well, well, here is the story of how I became just that.

I've seen The Flaming Lips live five times so far and it's going to be a lifelong ritual to see them every single time I possibly can. This story begins kind of dark though. On June 16, 2012, I had tickets to see Radiohead - instead, a terrible incident happened at Downsview Park in Toronto, Canada. While lined up outside with tickets in hand, eagerly waiting to get into the concert grounds, we watched parts of and heard the stage roof cave in from afar. What we didn't know at the time is that it had fallen onto members of the crew and ultimately killed their beloved drum technician and injured three other crew members. This information was not released to the public until days later, but all we knew was that ambulances were arriving on the scene and the concert had been indefinitely cancelled. Radiohead is not a band that tours very often, so not knowing about any injuries at that time, everyone waiting to get in to see their favorite band was devastated. Although we didn't know the extent of what happened, there was so much heaviness felt in the air from worry and disappointment. Before I move on with my story I want to take a moment to send my love and best wishes to everyone who suffered from this horrific incident, and love and respect to their beloved drum tech and family. Putting myself in that situation I can only imagine how horrifying and devastating an experience like this would be. There have been ongoing lawsuits since and I hope that the friends and families can be helped and find justice for this terrible event.

After this happened, about 10 people that I was going to the concert with walked to a nearby park. We sat and literally threw a ball around like we were all sad kinds from Charlie Brown. We then decided to look up what else in the city was going on and saw that The Flaming Lips were playing for free at Yonge and Dundas (If you don't know what that is, it's Toronto's take of Times Square). We all geared up and hopped on the subway to make it to that show on time. The air was heavy before The Lips hit the stage and somehow, looking around it felt collectively recognized. I knew only of The Lip's biggest songs - "Do you Realize" and the song from the Batman movie. With the knowledge of those two tracks I was actually really excited to see them play as I had zero expectations of what it was going to be like. Oh boy, now if you haven't ever been or seen what a Lips show looks like, be prepared, or don't be (cuz it's a fun surprise). You have never seen anything like it before nor will anything ever compare after. There will be the most colorful light shows you eyes have ever laid on, rainbow metallic confetti stuck in your clothes for months, frontman Wayne Coyne will be floating and singing around the crowd in a plastic bubble, the most intense synth and bass sounds injected into your veins, and overall there will be love felt so violently like you've never felt before. My senses were overloaded. The come down from a Lips concert sometimes takes days and it's wonderful. Wayne did mention his sorrow for the collapsed stage and his friends in Radiohead the night of that show as he knew that a lot of us had come over from that concert to this one. I cried so much that night for so many reasons. The emotions were just like the show, overloaded.

That concert was the first time my partner told me he was in love with me. Imagine a concert like what I've been telling you about, and on top of it, the young rush of love to make your heart flutter at a million miles per hour. I will forever connect my love for The Flaming Lips and their music to my still current love of 10 years. I cannot listen to a Lips song without hanging on to every sound and word as feelings of love are so deeply connected to the sounds. My first time seeing them was a beautiful, unforgettable snapshot that I cling to dearly in my life. Typing this out now I'm feeling choked up in my thoughts, thinking about that night and how emotions ran the gamut. I cried so hard and so much that night. I cried at my newfound admitted love. I cried worried about what happened back on that stage. I cried about life realizations, and I even cried holding strangers standing all around me that night. We all felt it. That night was one of those moments in life where you are in the moulting phases of being reborn. That's the night I realized magic really does exist in this world of ours. If you know what I am talking about, you know.

Since then I will never miss a Flaming Lips show. I've quit jobs, I've travelled, I've gotten tickets to whole festivals just to see them. Every single time I go, magic happens. If I were to get into every magical story that has happened at each of their shows, you would be here reading for a long ass time so I won't put you through that. lol. What I will say is that after that fateful summer night, I've over the years managed to meet Wayne Coyne and the rest of that gracious band to have beautiful chats with them. My band even hosted the official after-party here in Toronto the last time they played. I hope that one day I get to not only open for them (what a full-circle lifetime achievement that would be) but also get to work with them musically on a project. The Flaming Lips helped me believe that magic exists and that none of these dreams I want are too far fetched anymore. 

Here I am, 10 years later, an avid follower of a "cult band". Every person who goes to their shows then has a magical story to tell about it. In short, it's not just that time I cried at a show, it's that I will cry every single time I see or hear The Flaming Lips. It's a beautiful, magical, connective cry and It's comforting to look forward to.

“Alright,” he chuckled. “Let’s go to work.”

Those were the words uttered out of my dad’s mouth after he and his brothers finished a 15-minute-long laughing session about a very specific three seconds in time. Those three seconds happened to be about a man’s reaction when he heard the news that he is the father on The Jerry Springer Show.

I was about 5 or 6 years old at the time, and didn’t quite understand what was going on. All I knew is that it was funny; really fucking funny.

“Fucking” was a word I learned from them; and they would always have a big smile on their face and tears from laughter in their eyes when they said it, so I assumed it must be a good word. I mean, anyone that exudes that much happiness must be using a good word, right?

Anyway, they listened to my father, collected themselves and made their way out of the little room towards a door that said “STAGE ENTRANCE”.

I watched the show from backstage with my mom, who for some reason pursed her lips more and more every time they said the new word I learned. I could tell they were having fun; not the kind of fun they were having backstage with Jerry Springer, but a different kind of fun. I saw that it meant something to them. Unfortunately, like all good things, the show eventually came to an end. I was hooked. The next thing I knew, I was begging to go to any and every show. I loved seeing live music. I didn’t care what it was; The Utah Symphony, concerts in the park, a man playing the cello on the sidewalk… it didn’t matter, it was pure bliss!

What was even more blissful was my first violin lesson when I was 4 years old. It felt like my birthday and Christmas morning put into one. While little league baseball and art classes were fun, nothing compared to getting a chance to actually learn a musical instrument. I fell in love with the violin during the symphony’s performance of The Nutcracker. It was part of something called The Lollipop Series which was a concert that The Utah Symphony put on once a month for kids to introduce them to classical music. There was even an instrument “petting zoo” where kids got to play the instruments. I could’ve spent hours, probably even days there if I had the chance. I quickly learned that there was something even better than listening to music; creating it! If I wasn’t practicing the violin I was making up melodies on a toy keyboard or making my own recordings. My recording process at that age was pretty simple. The first step was to find my mother’s portable CD player (a boombox of sorts). The second step was to break out the Sesame Street-themed cassette player/recorder. Once you started playing the CD and pushed record on the Sesame Street rig, it was go time. I sang for hours. But I wanted to harmonize, and this was an issue since I couldn’t harmonize with myself when recording a cassette. What I could do though was grab a toy voice processor that came with a Halloween costume. It was cheap and made of plastic, but to me it was a godsend. It had the option of either amplifying my own voice, making it deeper, or “alien” which multiplied my voice into three very interesting sounding voices. The alien option was my favorite.

As I grew up, I expanded my palate by taking voice lessons, production classes, trumpet lessons and eventually studied music in college. It was pretty much my only passion. I didn’t care much for sports or math. Science wasn’t my best subject, and history was boring. But music… music was everything to me!

In a recent discussion with my mother, she told me she used to put headphones on her belly when she was pregnant with me and play my father’s music. Perhaps this is where it started. Perhaps I fell in love with music before I was even born. While I do understand now what my dad meant when he said “work” all those years ago, the passion still burns deep, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I knew I wanted to make music since I was around nine years old. I remember a good friend of my parents being a musician. He played the piano almost effortlessly. We went to one of his concerts and after seeing him play I knew I wanted to be just like him.

In 2000 I was eight years old. My dad was about to take me to one of my baseball games (for which I was probably more keyed up than any little kid should be) in his Ford F-150 and he put in a silver colored CD with four letters on the front: K-I-S-S. I know this band brings up certain feelings for a lot of listeners, but keep in mind - I don't care. I remember him saying that I was about to hear his favorite band from when he was my age, so naturally my ears perked up.

What happened next literally changed the course of my life. It took me from a little kid obsessed with baseball to a little kid obsessed with baseball and music. The opening guitar notes of "Detroit Rock City" invaded my ear drums. The seven hits to the snare just before the rest of the band exploded in blissful unison pulled me to the edge of my seat. The opening vocal line from Paul Stanley was the nail in the coffin in which my life before rock and roll was buried.

I literally felt like I was being sucked into the radio. My stomach was buzzing, my eyes were glued to the front console as if the band members were going to jump out of the speakers and into the truck cab. I completely forgot about playing baseball that night. After that night, I listened to that CD (which happened to be KISS' greatest hits) over and over again. I listened intently to the guitar solos, the drum fills and the delicious vocal hooks. It was the first time I remember being able to pick out each individual instrument.

It was also the first time I recall knowing what was happening within a song, and where it might go next. I felt as if I had jumped headfirst into a white water river where I couldn't drown; the further I dove in, the more I wanted it. Then I got a look at the band members themselves. They were like superheroes. They were larger than life. They were literally huge (three out of four band members were over six feet tall) and they wore lifted shoes. They lived what they sang about. They were angry, they were free and they were freaking good at what they did. They made it look easy.

I decided that I had to be part of whatever they were doing. I had to learn how to make those noises. I had to learn how to do what they did. I didn't have any interest in wearing the makeup, but I wanted the swagger. I wanted the skill. That was the moment I knew I had to make music.

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

I know some people say that you should hold your feelings inside and some don’t want grown men to cry, but as a music lover and a musician myself, I tend to love the shows where I connect with the artist. Where I feel that the song is written for me or about me. I can truly say that I have been very emotional on many occasions at shows but there are a couple of very special moments that I tend to go back to when I want to remember a really strong, sad but also empowering moment.

In this case there was a very small show for a school for pop/rock/funk artists called Kulturama. Young adults were performing and there was a lot of talent in that room. The thing is that I know that one of the singers, a very young female singer, had cancer, and it was terminal. She did not have much time left but with the support of her friends and with heavy medication she had pushed herself to be a part of this final show. 

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

It has to be said upfront: I cried at all David Bowie concerts I was lucky enough to witness, and I was fortunate enough to attend quite a few of them. The first was in 1987 on the rather ill-fated Glass Spider Tour. By that time I had been an avid fan for four years, ever since my sister bought the album Let’s Dance, which got me hooked from the scratchy guitar intro of the opening song, “Modern Love”. I was still a child back then, but immediately knew that Bowie was the gate to something bigger. So I started digging into his back catalogue and also the oeuvre of his friends and collaborators he would always be keen to mention in interviews to boost their exposure: Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. Through them, I got into the disciples of this Sacred Triangle such as Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen and ABC. It’s fair to say that without Bowie I would possibly be listening to Top 40 radio and wasting away in some dull office job.

When the man announced he would be touring the better part of 1987 after four years off the road, the excitement was enormous. We got tickets for the show on July 1 at Vienna’s Prater Stadion, and in the weeks before the show, anticipation would build to an almost unbearable extent. Come the day of the concert, and you’d find me by the gates as early as 10:30 in the morning. It was probably the hottest day of the year, and my skinny 14-year-old self struggled not to faint until the doors finally opened at 17:00. From then on, another two hours to go until the forgettable local support band and another four until Bowie’s grand entrance.

And suddenly there he was, abseiling from the stage top - remember, the tour was called Glass Spider for a reason, with the stage resembling a giant spider - and I couldn’t hold back the tears. There he finally was, the man I had been idolizing since I was 10, live on stage right in front of me. He looked a bit ludicrous in the red suit and this awful mullet-cum-quiff haircut, but who cares! It was Bowie for Christ’s sake! I remember I managed to recompose myself after the first thrust of emotions, but tears would roll again during “All The Madmen”, “Heroes” and “Absolute Beginners”. I vividly remember so many details from this show it’s ridiculous. Though it’s fair to say the album Never Let Me Down and the Glass Spider Tour were not Bowie’s most glorious moments, I’ll forever cherish the memories of that night.

I would see Bowie many more times and in much better artistic shape. The Sound+Vision greatest hits tour, Tin Machine - yes, I really love this band - Outside and Earthling tours in the 90s, Heathen and Reality tours in the 00s… Bowie always put his heart into the performance, whether it was in a small club or in a huge stadium. Of course, the most Bowie-related tears I shed was on January 10, 2016, when he unexpectedly shuffled off this mortal coil. The memories of our first in-person encounter on July 1, 1987 remain.