ABOUT

 

I Make Songs Out Of Things.

The world can be complicated. I'm interested in it that way.
 

When I was in high school, I used to sneak into the choir room before school to play the piano. I'd leave the house around six, walk to school, and spend some time with that beat-up old piano learning songs and banging out ideas of my own.

 

Naturally, I got caught. They were pretty cool about it. "You know, you can't break into the choir room?" They gave me a key to use during study hall instead.

 

Probably a better arrangement for everyone.





 

My first real band was Kinetic Sect. We won a national talent search against 6,500 other bands, and for a while we were managed by Paul McCartney's former manager, who seemed to think he was managing a much bigger band than he actually was. On the red-eye home from Los Angeles, we drank cocktails, called ourselves “recording artists,” and felt pretty sure our careers were about to take off.






I went to Ohio to make my first real solo record. I'd kept the project pretty private, partly because I worried people might find the whole enterprise a little silly. With David Mayfield at the helm and a bunch of studio musicians I'd never met, we learned and arranged the songs as we recorded them. It was exhilarating. I called the record At the Starting Line, which seemed about right. Looking back, I'd like to kick that guy in the ass for worrying so much. He was already on his way.



 

I've made a lot of records since then, written more songs than I can count, and played them all over the Northeast and beyond. Some people call musicians like me "lifers," but I'm beginning to think it's more like an incurable disease. I've tried to quit. It never takes.

 

I still have those "Holy shit" moments when I hear a great song. Bacharach. Costello. Simon. Elliott Smith. There are certain songs that can make me stop whatever I'm doing and wonder, "how the Hell did they do THAT?"