"I was born in 1974 in Beaumont, Texas. Don't look; it's not on the map. If there's a spot on this planet that's farthest from the sun you'll find Beaumont just past that. At least that's what I thought when I was growing up. It was actually a quiet city with a lot of people who had a true love for music. I started taking lessons when I was 13 after two of my friends and I decided to start a band. We didn't have a drop of musical knowledge between the three of us but it seemed like the coolest way to get into the talent show. As it turned out we never entered the talent show because once we were in a band we were way too cool for talent shows. My influences at that time were truly groundbreaking bands such as Motley Crue, Ratt, Poison, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Whitesnake . . . the list goes on and on. Luckily, the bands that MTV was spoon feeding me didn't do any permanent damage. I continued taking lessons and playing with high school friends, and by the time I was 17 the band I was in started writing its own music. We recorded five songs and submitted them to a magazine contest. We were sure that the contest would propel us into fame and fortune. As I am writing this in a 1 bedroom apartment in Valley Village, CA you can probably guess the outcome of the contest.

After I graduated from high school, I moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas. I never declared a major and I had absolutely no direction. Fortunately, my hometown band mates made the move to Austin the following year and we started playing under the name Sunflower. Hippies? Perhaps. I quit college after my second year and we started playing full time. My influences at this time had shifted to rock bands like Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, The Black Crowes and Blind Melon to name a few. And I finally discovered Led Zeppelin – those guys made a huge impact on me during that time. We had a good bit of success around Texas. We recorded 2 CD's under our own label and toured nonstop for nearly 4 years. During that time we played in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana opening for bands like 311, The Nixons, The Violent Femmes, Vertical Horizon, Better Than Ezra, and even Def Leppard – nope, it's not a misprint. We even landed a spot on the Warped Tour . . . for one date. Hey, there are no small parts, only small actors . . . or something. We called it quits after exhaustion from playing the same clubs over and over again set in, and girlfriends started to take precedence in our lives.

At this point I returned to school at UT and enrolled in the Civil Engineering program to study transportation design. Why? There's a long answer but I forgot most of it. Maybe all those years of traveling around on bad roads worked its way into my subconscious. I continued to play music with former band mates and other friends in Austin while getting my degree. I finally graduated in December of 2001 (my parents were so proud) and moved to Los Angeles to start my career.

Once in LA, I met Brian Kahanek through a mutual friend from Texas while he was recording his first CD, Real Life. I wasn't playing at the time (I was busy trying to be a responsible engineer) but that all changed when his bass player was unable to make a show. Brian asked me to fill in for the show. After that, I started filling in occasionally and over the next year Brian and Dustin and I started playing more and more often. There was a definite chemistry there and my place in the band was finally cemented when we started writing music together. Over the next two years we wrote and recorded the music that became Suicide King. As far as my current influences? It's all over the place these days from Thelonius Monk all the way across the spectrum to Tool, but I still love Led Zeppelin. I recently discovered Motown and the bass player for most of the label's music, James Jamerson. A truly amazing artist that I wish I would have paid attention to years ago. And finally, if I had to give a bit of advice to young musicians it would be: don't ever listen to people who act like they know everything about music, soak up everything you can, and be open to change because life will change whether you want it to or not and sometimes the change you don't want to make is exactly the change you need to make – in life and in music. But don't listen to me – I think I know everything."