Bio

If we met somewhere and you asked for my background, I’d probably bite my lip and look away. I might even try to deflect with a joke, but if you really wanted to know, I’d start at the beginning…

I’d tell you that as a kid, I watched my father struggle with psychosis.  My mom would refer to his breakdowns as “episodes”, and it almost sounds pleasant that way, like something you’d see on TV, but in reality, it wasn’t easy for us to watch.  He would end up in the hospital, and I’ll always remember how it felt to see him like that, so distant and weak... Even so, my dad is the strongest man I’ve ever known, and for every time that I had to watch him fall down, I got to see him get back up again. Both of my parents showed us a lot of strength in that regard, so I learned early on to be resilient.

Most of the time, our home was filled with music. My dad loved to play his horn, and he’d talk about Miles Davis as if they’d been best friends growing up. He taught my brother and I how to read music, and by the time I enrolled in primary school, I was writing simple songs on the piano.

I studied the violin, guitar, drums, and whatever else I had access to. By my second year of high school, I was giving music lessons in the afternoon, recording all night, and sleeping through most of my classes. I have always loved to learn, but we didn’t have a music program at my school, so at sixteen, I left home and set out to find my own way.

I drove across the U.S., playing in parks and on street corners. At the same time, I started selling my songs on the Internet, and in 2005, I achieved the number 1 chart position on the top music site of that time, Myspace.com. I was seventeen years old, and my home recordings were selling thousands of copies every week.

Suddenly, everything started to speed up. I recorded another album and moved to Los Angeles. I had to sublet a room, because at seventeen, I was too young to sign my own lease. Then, offers began coming in from major labels, and I allowed myself to be courted by some of the biggest players in the entertainment industry. It was a world I’d never experienced before, complete with first class flights, fancy dinners and five-stars accommodations.

On my eighteenth birthday, I signed a recording contract, released The Album, and left for a year on the road. It was a high point in my life, and for a little while I was very happy, but somewhere along the way I began to lose myself.

With success going to my head and the world bending to my whims, I became vain and selfish. I only cared about people to the extent that they were useful to me and drinking became a central fixture in my life. I ended up isolated and alone, throwing all of my energy into music. Then, the record company abandoned ship, and I felt that I had nothing left to live for.

I parked my trailer on a lot near my parent's house and made a full-time habit of drug use.  I would lie in bed for weeks at a time, staring at the ceiling and crying.  If not for the thought of hurting my family, I would have ended my story, then.

Out of desperation, I started taking extremely high doses of powerful hallucinogens. I’d stay lost in other worlds for weeks or even months on end.  I can remember feeling as if I were chasing some sort of transcendence or renewal, but I only succeeded in shattering my sanity. What I didn’t realize at the time was how hard it would be to rebuild myself with those broken pieces.

I ended up in the hospital, and after several diagnoses, I was scheduled for something called “drug therapy”. Having already taken plenty of drugs, the thought of putting anything else into my body seemed absurd to me. So instead, I bought a plane ticket and flew to Paris.

I spent the next two years walking around, making my way through most of Europe, Africa, India and Asia.  Along the way, I bore witness to poverty and wealth, sickness and health, all the while trying to remember what sanity had felt like. I wish I could say that I had some kind of great epiphany out there, but I didn’t.

I just caught dysentery, and fell horribly ill. I couldn’t eat or even move for a couple of weeks, so I laid myself down in a hut somewhere on the Western coast of India, and I waited for death to creep in. But I didn’t die. Eventually, I found enough strength to begin eating again, and I made the long journey home...

Now, I’m living in Los Angeles. And while I don’t feel entirely well, every day gets a little bit better. I’ve been recording my music alone in a bedroom, just like when I was a kid. Only now, I’m a bit older, and I can sign my own lease. I've released a sample of these home-recordings on a 5-track EP entitled Night Owl, and I’ll follow that with a full-length album in 2012.

Anyway, to bring this full circle, as I said in the beginning, if we had met somewhere and you asked for my background story, at this point I’d bite my lip once again, smile and say that I’d just talked way too much…

Then, I’d thank you for having listened to me.
Night Owl is available now on iTunes and Spotify.