Well, I was born in St. Louis, MO back in '84, mom and dad raised my brothers and I right. They were cool enough to take my older brother and I to concerts, I saw almost everybody from New Kids On The Block, to The Ramones and The Grateful Dead.
Music has always been a big thing for me, it's my life. I started off playing bass about 16 years ago, my older brother told me to get a bass when he got a Fender Strat, I guess he didn't want me copying off of him anymore.
Whenever Matthew (o...
Well, I was born in St. Louis, MO back in '84, mom and dad raised my brothers and I right. They were cool enough to take my older brother and I to concerts, I saw almost everybody from New Kids On The Block, to The Ramones and The Grateful Dead.
Music has always been a big thing for me, it's my life. I started off playing bass about 16 years ago, my older brother told me to get a bass when he got a Fender Strat, I guess he didn't want me copying off of him anymore.
Whenever Matthew (older brother) wasn't home, I'd sneak into his room and play his guitar and mess around with his Dunlop Wah Pedal, he'd catch me and beat the shit out of me.
After my parents got divorced and after going through tough times after that up through high school and a bunch of bad break ups, and after a lot of practicing, I was finally able to sing and play at the same time.
I got my start at open mic nights at Marly's Pub up in Springfield, IL, then once again there was another break up and I ended up moving back down to St. Louis. After everything that had happened I just didn't really care about anything but music.
I chose to be homeless and play my music everyday down in the Loop on Delmar Boulevard. I played almost every single day out in front of Vintage Vinyl, then after they got sick of me Ben & Jerry's named me their house musician.
I met a lot of cool people, a lot of them would take me in and let me stay with them for a night or more, they'd let me take showers too so I wouldn't always be the stinky homeless busker.
A few of the people that took me in were old high school buddies, oh yeah I went to Ladue High School, ended up graduating with a 3.5 somehow.
When I wasn't able to get a roof over my head I often camped out in Forest Park, a few times in alleys and on sidewalks also, and always the occasional park bench.
All that led up to me getting asked to move back in with my mom, getting a job at a Starbucks, then putting in my two weeks after working there for about 3 months, then I went out to California to see how I could do with my music.
I ended up doing pretty well out there, I got a show with only being there for not even 2 weeks, I also got picked to play the always busy open mic night at the Hotel Utah in San Francisco. 60 to 80 people usually sign up to try and get on stage, they put your name in a pitcher and pick you at random, I got picked 15th.
I got homesick and came back home to St. Louis, stayed with a really good friend of mine. After a while I started getting shows, now I've got a monthly gig at Cabin Inn at The City Museum in downtown St. Louis.
My most recent show there one of my songs was on John Carney's Thursday Night Music Club on KMOX Radio. I was playing my show so I didn't get to hear it at the time, I got home and listened to the podcast of it.
I'm back working at a Starbucks just under 40 hours a week and still playing music and playing shows. I put everything into my music, I have a lot of people that support me and believe I can make it, although I don't believe I can all the time.
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