When those guys moved away I found some new guys to jam with in High School. By then, I had a reputation for being a decent player. There weren't a whole lot of places to play when you're that young so the pinnacle was the school's "Variety Show". We sounded best doing Bad Company covers. Yeah, I know that sounds pretty "Neck-dified" by today's standards but back then that was cool. We later started playing Dio songs. It's funny because at the time, the singer was anybody that had the guts to stand up and sing in front of people. Whether they could actually sing or not didn't matter. After a couple of successful "Variety Show" performances we disbanded. Hey, you've already been to the top. What's the point? ;)
After High School, I jammed with some guys in Rock Hill near Winthrop College. This time we had a singer that was actually good. We had some cool original songs but could never find the right chemistry of members. You can hear this band under "MISC" on my BANDS page. The song I called "Mystify". It didn't really have a title at the time. I've got some better stuff but I don't really feel the urge to post it. While we were practicing I noticed the bass player, Bill McConnell, had Fates Warning's "Awaken The Guardian" CD. I thought John and I were the only ones that had ever heard of these guys!
So with Bill on Bass, me and John on guitar, we set out to form a "supergroup" with the sole purpose of learning Fates Warning songs. The obvious choice for drums was Luis Castrillon, a young guy known as the best in the area. We could pretty much play the whole "Guardian" album as well as a few tracks from "No Exit" and a few others here and there. If you've ever heard Fates you can imagine that finding a singer would be a problem. Therefore we were an instrumental act and remained that way for most of our existence as a band. We started writing our own songs with a heavy influence on musicianship and avoiding cliché's and played our first gig together at THE MILESTONE CLUB. We got the guy that sang on "Mystify" to join us just so we could have a singer on a couple of songs. This was only the first of many singers to come and go over the years we played together. We were well respected by musicians but never gained acceptance from the masses. Eventually we all had to move on. John and Bill were the first. Luckily, the first bass player to answer our ad was the perfect replacement. Cliff Paul is like an Idiot Savant. He mastered all the songs and can play Geddy Lee licks note for note. But, and I mean this in the best possible way, he's not so bright when it comes to anything else. We played as a 3 piece for a while. Luis, Cliff, and me. Some guitar players came and went. One of them, Kyle Harrison, was one of the most technically proficient guitarists that I've ever seen. I benefited as a player from being around him. Then I got a strange letter in the mail. No ANTHRAX, just a note from Adam Saunders. He played guitar in a band that had been mining a similar "metal vein" as us and wanted to know if we'd like to join forces. It's worked out as a beautiful friendship that I enjoy to this day. We added "Shout" as our singer and continued playing the clubs and making demos. Until one day, it just stopped being fun and became work. We'd lost the kind of "oneness of purpose" that had made us strong and I found myself asking "why am I doing this?" You can hear the JERICHO SIREN songs on the BANDS page.
Luis had been talking with friend of ours about starting a new group with a more modern sound and asked if I was interested. The friend was Sean McKnight and the group went on to become BOTHER. Sean and I wrote the first song on my back porch one day. It was refreshing to have so many good musical ideas to choose from. Another exciting difference was to finally have a singer as the focal point. Previously we'd had guys with racks of effects and expensive PA equipment and still sounded like crap. Then here's Sean singing through a 12 watt guitar amp and sounding better than all of them! By this time I was married w/children. That doesn't go well for a band that wants to play 3 times a week. Also, I'd seen it happen before with the other band. You think you're awesome and you put your heart and soul into it only to get the door slammed in your face over and over again. I just wasn't going to stick my neck out again. I felt and still feel like there's a smart way to do this where you don't have to live out of a car eating bologna and shooting heroine to have a music career. There were some personnel changes in BOTHER so rather than be told by the new recruits how to run MY band, I bowed out. Instantly their song catalogue doubled because I was always the obstacle to completing a song. I just never wanted to compromise the quality of the song just to have it "finished". I'd rather have 3 good songs than 6 songs with a few good parts in them. You can hear the BOTHER tunes on the BANDS page as well.
I wanted to continue playing at my own pace, plus I felt like I had something to prove to everyone else. So I auditioned for groups around town and played in a few sessions here and there. I remember one audition was held onstage at a bar. (I wonder if they got paid) I even played with a punk/thrash band called THE REVILED. It was a challenge that I feel made me a better player. Also, "Texas Pete" is one of the most focused and motivated musicians I've ever met. He's a true original. But finally I realized that playing in somebody else's band wasn't going to make me happy.
Just for the fun of it I even helped start a top 40 bar band. It was a lot of fun at first. Doing the songs you like to hear on the radio. But the downside is that by the time you've rehearsed it enough to play for folks you're so sick of it you don't enjoy it anymore. I decided that if I'm going to beat myself over the head with the songs I'd rather them be my own. There was one good thing to come out of this, though. I had to sing backup on the songs which is something I'd never done before. Not that I'm a great singer or anything but it makes you a more rounded performer.
After that, I didn't do much for a while musically. Then Sean called and said he was putting together a concert to benefit for a friend who'd recently passed away. He asked if we'd be interested in putting some of the old bands back together for the occasion. The concert never happened but since we'd geared up for the event anyway we kept on playing. More or less this is the loose conglomeration of friends I've been recording with ever since. Formally, it's Sean, Trey and I. But occasionally we'll mix in some other folks. We settled on calling ourselves "jolie" and are working on something we can call an "album" to see if anybody else enjoys our mix of styles. Our main focus is writing songs and making recordings. Should the need to perform live arise we'll likely pull from our friends to piece together a group capable of the task. If you're still reading this, thanks for letting me "bend your ear". Shoot me an email sometime!
PART II
The urge to do heavy music has returned and I've united some of the core members from "Bother". They swear there's still some "name recognition" out there for that group so we've retained the name. That's one less thing to worry about, I guess! This time the plan is to make some great recordings of songs that never got the treatment they deserve. Ultimately, we'd like to do an "album". I'd like to see us only do "hits" that are instantly "likeable". We are writing new material as well as re-tooling some of the old stuff to make it less dated sounding. The first song we'll record is "Hate".
I am still writing "jolie" stuff but my primary focus will be on "Bother".
Update 3/21/2010
The Bother CD is done and has sold well on iTunes. We have not pushed it as hard as we would like to. But with everyone being scattered and having full time jobs, that is pretty tough. The whole process of making a CD start to finish was a great experience that few people have the opportunity to do.
