Hmm.... this band started... where to start...

    Basicly, I started out doing this Ska band with this kid Mike. Well, we didn't do much, and never really had any songs... a cover. It was me singing and playing guitar, this other kid who was gonna play bass but never did, and mike playing drums. After like 5 practises in 6 monthes, I was talking to a friend of mine, Graham Downing. He wanted to join, I wasn't sure at first, but sure enough I did. He never practised with Mike, becuase I never practised with him again (his parents wouldn't let him practise much). So I would always go to Graham's house and we'd do Blink covers. After a while we couldn't find a bassist (meanwhile we didn't have a drummer now), so I got bored looking for one and borrowed a bass from Julian (yup, that Julian), and I became a bassist. I taught myself guitar and just picked up a bass and just played it. Turned out alright. So now it was a two piece, no drummer.

    So after nearly a year just playing covers with Graham, never having a show or a drummer, I wrote my first song, Distant. Graham didn't feel we were ready to do our own stuff. I showed him the chords and the guitar solo and taught him the lyrics (originaly I wrote the song where he would trade the lyrics with me back and forth during the song). So after we played the song through once, Graham still didn't think we were ready.

    Meanwhile on the bus home I met this kid named Duane, he talked a lot, sometimes I wouldn't even be listening, I'd space out for a few minutes and look over and notice he was still talking... I'd just nod my head and say yes. Anyway he heard I was in a band, and wanted to join as our drummer. I thought "Cool" but I didn't want him to think I was desperate, so I was like "yea,.. Graham knows this guy Lee who plays drums, were gonna try and get him to be our drummer, but we'll give you a listen". Meanwhile Graham did ask Lee if he'd be in the band... but Lee said something along the lines of "No, I want to start a boy band!". I imagined him saying this while holding the latest issue of Teen Bop and listening to 2ge+her in the background or something, but whatever floats your boat.

    So I decided to give Duane a try, and I forget how I did that. One of two things, either I brung my bass over and played with him or me, Graham and a friend of ours who played with us sometimes (Chad) came over and played along with Duane. I forget which happened first...  I do remember carrying all of our equipment in 6 inches of snow to Duane's down about half a mile, and when we got there he wasn't home... Oh man, I was thinking "great first impression". But he eventually showed up and we played with him.

    In the few monthes to follow Graham would never show up to practice. Me and Duane got a little angry and short story shorter, Graham was out of the band. No offense to him, but this gave me the chance to write my own songs. So we tried a few people, only two of which actually played with us. Eventualy, we practiced with Julian, he didn't know the cover songs as well as we hoped when he played with us, but I could tell he could be great with us. I taught him Distant in the first practise I think. We played through it and I loved it. Now we had the band. After a while Julian decided that he wanted to be in it, and we just went with it. I kept writing songs and me and Julian kept writing the music together. Now here we are, a little under a year of becoming the band we are today, and our albums coming out... Damnit, I promised myself I wouldn't cry...