Let me begin by saying this band is far and away the best group of people that I've had the priviledge of working with -- ever. Just out and out good people. Words can't express the pride I feel in being counted among them.
Down to business. I'm from Hibbing, MN and started playing guitar when I was about 12 years old. I learned on a twelve string -- I thought it was cooler sounding than a regular guitar. Somewhere along the way, I sort of just gravitated away from that and towards vocals, as there were a lot of phenomenal singers back then: Steve Perry, Lou Gramm, Joe Lynn Turner, Steve Walsh, Mickey Thomas, even Pat Benatar and Anne Wilson to name just a few. I found myself drawn to the abilities of all these people to draw the emotion out of their music, whether ballad or rocker, and simply stun people. I wanted that. So instead of football, or baseball or any kind of real social life, I spent my free time down in my room in the basement and practiced. (my Mom still has nightmares. I've since apologized.) When I couldn't do it in the house, I would walk the tracks behind our house with my headphones on and sing there. I saw Journey in concert (my first) and thus began my lifelong obsession with music.
About 1983, I won an audition for a company called "Young American Showcase" -- and travelled with one of their bands called "Free Fare" ("Freedom Jam" was their other band) throughout the south, doing the High School/College rounds for about six months. Then it was a string of obscure bar bands for awhile. In 1986, I joined a band called "Ian Faith" (things come full-circle, don't they?), Then "Ivory Star" in 1988, an original project called "Hero" in '91, that made a great record and had potential, but as it is so often, somebody bails, and the project tanks. In 1992 I met our current drum phenom, George Hamilton, and we put a band together called "Diamondheart". We had a great time in that band playing Kansas, Saga, and of course Journey, and generally challenging ourselves at every turn. He was very good then -- he blows me away now.
Then there were, as some of us like to call them, "the dark times", when real rock bands couldn't get arrested. Not that we didn't try. So, I bided my time in an acoustic duo for 5 years, and then joined a band called "Push" where I got to know Matt Moline, Faith Nation's current bass prodigy. I do mean prodigy. Push tanked, (very long story) and I met Hewey, an amazing person and musician, who was at that time lamenting the demise of the last version of Faith Nation, and Lewis Sego, who is such an amazing, awe-inspiring keyboardist, and he makes it look effortless. Like I heard somebody say about him before, Lewis is all over this band like a rash. (the kind you get from, say, um.....well, never mind, that analogy was about to go bad...) The good kind.
Somehow -- divine intervention, I believe, is at the core of what ultimately put and kept this band together. There is so much good music here, it scares me.
--To the future...bring it on.
Pete
