The first song I wrote was a prayer for snow. The end game was a day off school to spend with friends. The snow came and we spent the day playing basketball and listening to music.
That was followed by two and a half decades of songwriting and playing music in a coffeehouses, youth groups, parking lots, small clubs, churches, house, streets, and camps. All along I wanted to be part of something as mundane and epic as an unexpected snowfall that lets the kids get a day off school. . . Aand from time to time I was.
I fronted bands and played in front of way more people than my shy grade school self would have thought possible (or desirable). I shared the stage with people whose songs and skills I respect and whose ideas and lives I’ve learned from. I am a part of two ongoing musical endeavors that I believe have the potential to create music that will make it snow. Surge On Smith is a folk collaboration with TX native Kelly Clemons. The other is a band that has yet to be named. We are in the secret lab working on things. . .
I hope that the next several decades will allow me to create and share the music the last three have made possible inside of me. . . Which will hopefully speak some kind of hope and perspective into a few of the major challenges we as a culture are facing. Music can change things. It does changes things. I am thrilled to be able to be one small part of that happening in a way that calls out hidden things (good, bad and otherwise) and pushes back boredom, evil, and blindness with melody, poetry, and prophetic fire. Music has always done that whether we realized it or not.
My influences are varied, including poets, songwriters, mystics and bands. Folk, blues, punk, reggae and various streams of electronic music inspire me.