On a lot of websites or myspace accounts, this is the place where you'll find a number of stories: how unnamed artist has inspired a new generation of pop sensibility with a real introspective quality of reflection; or how this unnamed artist has overcome incredible hurdles in life just to have food on the table, let alone be able to make the music he or she loves. I'm sorry if it disappoints you, but you won't find that story here.
This is the real story, a kind of biographical recount of the past few years (which is a little bit unusual for me, because I have always had this odd prejudice against revealing myself completely, but I want this to be real, not a mystery). In 8th grade I had an art segment that was part of my humanities class. On a typically sunny day in Scottsdale, Arizona, I walked into this art class singing a song that was immensely popular at the time: "I was gonna get up and go to class, but then I got high. I coulda cheated and I coulda past, but then I got high..." Just when I thought I was in my own world with this song in my head and my mind in the clouds, a man (but really a boy) by the name of David chimed in: "and now I'm taking it next semester, and I know why (why man?...yeehaw) Because I got high, because I got high..." you get the picture. As if it isn't clear from this alone, we have been best friends ever since. Now, a common misconception about me, especially now that I have sported dredlocks is that I am a stoner. Once again, I'm sorry to disappoint you. This is not say I don't have my fun, it just doesn't rule my life. But that's a different point.
Now, David and I didn't necessarily have the same taste in music despite our affection for this particular hit. But over a few months of introducing each other to new things (mostly he introducing me to the Goo Goo Dolls, Taking Back Sunday, and Saves the Day, and our best friend Sean introducting me to Dashboard Confessional and the Get Up Kids, among others) we saw the beauty in the music that has become a staple in the music that has formed the trends now known as "emo." Yeah, I was an emo kid. I was an emo kid before it was cool to be an emo kid, and before it was uncool to be an emo kid, and before it was cool to be uncool.
Making our debut into high school, David picked up the guitar, and I the bass. With Sean, who also played the guitar, we formed our first band: the drummer-less Only In April. And I'll tell you this now: we sucked. We were horrible. We had a couple songs that were conceptually decent, but we just sucked at our instruments and couldn't write anything really provocative. We got a couple gigs, playing at high schools and small clubs in the really terrible areas of Phoenix. But being in a band is a real roller coaster, and by the time we had found a decent, full-time drummer, Josh, we had a weird kind of fight and split up.
Now, to tell you the truth, we didn't live for the music--we lived because of the music. We each had our own lives. I played soccer, that was my thing. I was the goalkeeper and the captain of my high school varsity team every one of the four years I spent there. And at the risk of seeming like a cocky jock, I was pretty good. I had an offer or two to play soccer in college, but nowhere I wanted to go. And to further the problem I dislocated my shoulder and, after a quick surgery, I was out of commision for a few months. Nonetheless, the route of the professional athlete is one I wish I had taken. The point is, that a lot of time went by when Only In April didn't exist, and it didn't seem long because we were so consumed with our own things. But just as my days on the field were coming to a close, my days as a musician began to fill up my schedule.
In some ways, not being in a band is a lot easier. You make all the decisions and so you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. But it's also very difficult--there's no one to collaborate with, no one to tell you if you're just making a sonic peace of shit, and no one to experience it with you. But for almost a year this is what I did--and I did it all under the penname Quinn McKaye. Ian McKaye was the singer of a band called Minor Threat who has been credited, depending on who you ask, with starting what turned into the "emo" movement. So I stole his name and paired it with Quinn, which I just thought was cool. I wrote and recorded my very first EP. It was called The Process and it sucked too. I don't even have the songs that were on it anymore; although, they weren't that bad; it was only the sound quality that was terrible. The problem is that I recorded them on my old school Dell computer without a single peace of professional recording equipment, only sound recorder. It's painful just to think about.
This put an extraordinary emphasis on my live performance, and in that regard I was doing ok. A small hole in the wall venue--which has recently shut down--called Four White Walls was becoming a regular spot for me. I played a number of shows there with David and Sean who were each starting their own projects, as well as at other places with some local favorites like Radiance, and Perry Allen. I was even making a small amount of money from the gigs I was playing, all the while building a network of musician friends and enthusiastic venue owners. By the time my senior year of high school rolled around, the kind of music I was going for was not something I could do on my own anymore; I needed the band again.
David, Josh, and I teamed up with a friend of mine named Donny from high school to form the Quinn McKaye band. The songs I wrote for this band are arguably the best songs I've ever written; and in due respect, I put down the money to get them professionally (sorta) recorded. With quality recordings on an EP I called We Are Safe, and a band that practiced on a regular basis, I was finally very happy with where my music had taken me, but it was not meant to last. Senior year is a time to say goodbye, not to start new projects.
