A Brief History of My Bands

I don't know if any of you care, but I wanted to write about this. I mean, I'm starting to work on a project about a band, so I think I'm just trying to jog my memory about playing in bands, writing songs, and all that.

So here you go.

My first band, of course, was Autumn Poetry. I started playing guitar (I didn't own one, so I borrowed my friends' guitars...all of our equipment was borrowed, and we ran into some bumpiness in our friendships because of it). I didn't sing at first. First, we got our friend Aaron, who turned out to suck at singing, and who turned out to not be as serious as we wanted him to be (At our first show, he showed up hours late, right before the show started, and it wasn't long after that show in the front room of our house, that we kicked him out (or he quit, or something)). I have pictures of him in the band, but I'll have to find them.

We wrote songs vigorously. Our older friend, the reason we wanted to start bands and the reason we realized we could, told us we wrote songs too fast, told us to not be so serious about our music. But we couldn't help it. We loved it!

Originally, we were called just Autumn, but there are so many bands with that name, so we put Poetis (I think) on the end of it, 'cause it was foreign, and there's a Sunny Day Real Estate song, where Enigk sings in Greek...I think it's Greek. Maybe not. Whatever, this is like 13 years ago. Anyway, that was stupid, so we changed our name to Autumn Poetry. (And as a joke, on one flyer, our friends wrote Autumn Burritos, which pissed us off so much. We were furious and ended up not talking to them for a while). We didn't realize how BAD Autumn Poetry was. Though, years went by and we never changed it. Why? I don't know. We were afraid that people wouldn't remember us. That was stupid, because we were so tiny. Our biggest fan base with in Fresno, or So. Cal. and we were trying to make it in Seattle. But whatever, we never changed our name, not till we broke up, and changed it to We are the Parade. But it was a lost cause. Two big indies and one major wasn't interested in our song. I think our songs were good, but a lot of the lyrics were so bad that we just couldn't sink it. I'll admit, I wrote the lyrics, and even when I wanted to change them, no one else thought it was a good idea. We wanted to ride out what we had going. I'm still proud of those songs, I just wish we would've bitten the bullet and revises most of our lyrics. Of course, there are those classics that we wouldn't've changed, but nonetheless, a majority of the lyrics would've been completely different.

I started playing drums after our original drummer, Bennett Park (great drummer, great man), moved to Berkeley to go to school (still going), and every replacement we got, sucked. So, I let Caleb sing, put the guitar down, and started playing. I remember the first show I played drums. We were going to play a show in Tacoma and our drummer quit, right before the show (we had one drummer who quit on the way to the show, but still played it. It was pretty awful). So, I took the drums, set it up, and played. I basically, just kept time, and let Caleb make most of the noise. Considering, it turned out OK. I started practicing all the time, and eventually, we wrote our Autumn songs to be fairly simple, but with cool patterns, so that I could beat the shit out of the drums, and we could rock when we played.

First line up: Aaron (vocals), Travis (bass/guitar), Bennett (drums), Caleb (guitar, yells, feedback), Joshua (vocals/guitar/bass)

Second line up: Travis, Bennett Caleb, Joshua (same)

Second.five line up: Numerous drummers.

Third line up: Travis, Jeremy (Drums), Caleb, Joshua

Fourth line up: Joshua and Caleb (Jeremy played drums on half our record/Greg, from Kilmer, played bass)

Fifth line up: Joshua (drums), Caleb, Kevin (bass) (who we were playing with in a band called the Hopeful) Carrie (Rhodes Piano)

Sixth line up: Joshua, Caleb, Kevin, Lacey (Rhodes keyboard...she joined us on a Winter tour, after Carrie quit mid-tour...we were all fighting a lot. Carrie called Lacey a bitch, Kevin, who was pissed at Carrie, told Lacey and Caleb. Caleb choked me in front of the Castle in Disneyland. That night the band broke up. The next day, Carrie flew home. Then the band finished the tour, thanks to Lacey learning all the parts, while Kevin and I were in Santa Rosa drinking with the Polar Bears at a New Years Eve party)

Seventh line up: Joshua, Caleb, Kevin, Lacey, Chad (guitar) (I had started booking for Chad's band Never Again. He started playing on a couple songs, and eventually, he became permanant, much to Kevin's un-happiness).

Eighth line up: Joshua, Caleb, Chad (bass) , Lacey. (Kevin had quit as were were finishing up our full-length. Chad slid right into playing bass).

We broke up in the Horseshoe cafe, discussing our options. Tooth & Nail seemed interested, but then decided not to pursue us. Militia Group really liked our record, but thought that we weren't pop-punk enough to sign at the moment. He said, "We just signed the Appleseed Cast. They don't sell like pop-punk. So, sorry. We signed the only non-pop-punk band we can sign right now." OK. He didn't say this verbatim. But our contact relayed this to us. And finally, a friend tried to get this to his manager and major label, but it turned out to go nowhere. So that was it. Our last show was a house show in our friends' house, with our friends' bands, and we played three songs, before the cops shut us down. That, and we played someone's wedding as a favor. It was weird watching a bride and groom sing along to our tunes.

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THE HOPEFUL - Was a band for Caleb's songs. Brian from Kilmer played lead guitar, Kevin played bass, I played drums (this is around the time, I started playing in Autumn. I think these practices helped me become a better drummer for AP). We practiced in Brian's garage once a week and played only one show, at the Woodinville YMCA Youth Center, which is actually two blocks from where I live now. I jogged by in and though t about that show. I wore a red scarf as I played. Caleb just recorded a handful of song, many of them from the Hopeful days. The record is almost done. It's really good. Sometimes, the songs get stuck in my head. Sometimes, I hate that.

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Oh, Paper Airplanes. A girl broke my heart and I wrote songs about it. Truth is, a lot of the songs were already written, so I just pretended they were about a girl. I thought it was a poetic thing to do. Now, I guess it just makes me look like an idiot. In the background, is Matt. He played keyboards and programmed my beats. I tried to keep him in the band, but his rhythm and timing were awful. His beats were cool, though, and on our first record, we used his as the skeletons for the ones we finalized. He came and sang on the record with me (background yells), but he had left/I had asked him not to play anymore. I was a little mean to him. That picture is of me looking back at him and saying, "Stop playing," because he was way off and it was messing me up. I still apologize to him about that moment. Next time I see him, I'll apologize. He was a great band mate and a good friend, regardless of his political views. Haha. I have two records I recorded with this band. I released neither. Once again, lyrics kinda suck (but some are better than AP), but the songs are pretty good. I might go back to the well, when I make another record. Re-vitalize them, change them, rewrite many of the words. This is the band where I decided you didn't need a bridge to make a decent song. Just a verse and a chorus and a louder chorus at the end. I played my last show opening for Mount Eerie and the 1am Radio at the VU at Western. I sang a song about that girl who broke my heart, and I'm told, when she heard the song, she started crying and ran out. Awesome. But not really.

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This picture is in Seattle, outside the new Paradox in Ballard. We hadn't even recorded anything yet. We were still just an idea, just pieces of sections (oh yeah, we called songs, sections, because we would only write small pieces/sections of songs, and most of our sets were ad-lib/improv).

I remember the first time we jammed. It was before an Never Again practice. We just started playing shit. It was cool. I said, "We should do this." Chad said, "Yeah, this is cool." Or something like that.

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I was gonna start an Explosions in the Sky type band with this guy, and we jammed in his room a couple times, but nothing ever came of it. Too bad. It would've been a blast, especially if he kept that mustache. Sexy and so hip.

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Wendelin joined The Braille Tapes, 'cause we love his drumming. He was in In Praise of Folly and Members Of. We recruited him to play on a couple tracks on F-Bomb, but those couple tracks, became more. On our first tour with him, he played only half the set, and he was supposed to do that for the entirety of his tenure in the band, but when we started writing Robot Meat is Murder, it just made more sense for him to play drums and Chad to play bass, because I was showing everyone the songs I wrote.

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Then Drew joined, played a few shows with us and Wendelin (also of In Praise of Folly and Members Of). We thought, he would become a staple, but that sort of fizzled out when his new band with Wendelin, Rooftops, started getting attention. Wendelin stuck it out with us. And we were glad, 'cause he's probably the best drummer I ever played with. He makes me look bad.

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Then, while writing Robot Meat, my brother joined the band. He's always had a knack for writing coolest secondary/lead parts that don't sound like a guitarist wanking away, but accompany the music. It was pretty cool having him in the band. Though, he couldn't understand my distaste for touring, my distaste for long recording session. I guess, looking back, I was just burnt out. I miss playing. I miss writing songs and showing them to bands. I miss playing shows. I miss those drives to Seattle for shows. I miss standing in the back of a club after a set, steaming, talking about the set, making jokes, looking at my band-mates, and thinking, "These guys are amazing." It's weird thinking about ever playing music with anyone else. I learned how to play music with these guys, I learned how to write a good song, how to sing, how to make a melody, how to record a record.

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There are bands I didn't write about. All of them short-lived: Ian (me caleb and some ass-hole. We played two awful shows.) Oden (I played drums, Travis and some other dude. Butt-rock, but not cool. They started doing drugs, a lot. Plus the music sucked) Magician's Newphew (Me, Matt, and Travis. We wrote one song. It sucked. We just stuck with Autumn) Southern Gospel Revival (I wasn't in this band, but I wanted to be. Caleb, Jeremy Vincent-our pastors song, and Travis on drum. They sounded like a bad version of 764-Hero and Blenderhead. Though, they had their moments. I really wanted to be in this band. And was crushed when they wouldn't let me. Jeremy was the lead singer of Wink and Silas, both local bands who almost signed with Tooth & Nail) I think I was in a band with Kevin that didn't go anywhere.

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Right now, I'm writing songs for that big project I wrote about the other post. THE MISSION TAPES. It's weird. I'm going to write the songs, then tear them apart and place them in a decade. I'll have to research (listen to bands of the time and learn HOW they played drums, guitars, keyboards, bass, etc. How they made melodies). I have to learn about how they recorded, and tell our producer. But it's fun writing for someone again. Truth is, I'll probably just recruit The Braille Tapes for the band. But we'll see.