The Early Years

Music has always been an important part of my life. I can still remember playing "air band" to my Uncle Roderick's 45s from the '70s and then graduating up to creating pretend instruments out of household items (a few pots, pans, and trash cans for a drum kit; tennis racquets for guitars, and well, an actual child's organ for the keyboard). We hammed it up to the music of the Clique, Five Man Electrical Band, and Three Dog Night until I was finally able to request my own music (the first of which were cassettes of Kiss Dynasty and REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity, and an LP of AC/DC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap -- my preacher grandfather bought it for me -- for the record).

Eventually I moved up to real instruments and joined a few bands in high school (Paradox and Cornerstone) and college (Three Guys Looking for Percussion and an unnamed trio), and now I've settled into a more relaxing mode of playing for my church's band and writing and recording a mixture of electronic music and old-school rock and roll on my home computer and live modern rock with the band 22FIVE.

The REIGN Years

Between 1988 and 1992 I played bass in the Christian rock band, Reign. We had an '80s thing going big-time, and would have given our last dollar to be Toto or Van Halen (most of the time). We played mostly for churches at camps, youth events, or community events, but we did have three big event gigs -- one at IS Fest, during which we played the same stage as two of my faves, Adam Again and the Choir, and two at Atlanta Fest, the Southeast's biggest Christian music festival. We released one cassette called i of the storm, and later began work on a second release, tentatively titled Even in the Dry Season, but never finished it before the band broke up in the early 90s. Our original line up included Matthew Carter on keys and lead vox, Brett Allen on guitar and lead vox, Stephen Bagley on drums and backing vox, and Sean Taylor on bass and backing vox. Later, when Brett left the band, he was "replaced" (though he could never really be replaced, you know) by Matthew's brother Rob Carter on guitar and lead vox.

Church on Time

In the years after Reign broke up, I spent a lot of my time playing bass and signing in various church praise bands, and also helped form the first praise team for the North American Mission Board (where I was working at the time as the national director for Baptist Men On Mission). 

st:trax -- Going Digital

Back in 2003, I released my first solo CD of "electronic-infused garage rock," Pop Nightmare, under the working name of st:trax and released the second, Dreaming and Other Diversions, in 2006. What's it sound like? I like to think it sounds like modern incidental music from shows like Alias and the like, but I'm probably just dreaming. Maybe it's like the accident that would happen if the Chemical Brothers smashed their bus into Van Halen or Nirvana. Who knows? Just listen and find out for yourself. I'm currently putting together a 2-volume "best of" st:trax CD called Roktronica, which will also feature a few new songs.

Nothing Regal

Eventually I joined Lakeland Community Church and found a place on the praise team there, ultimately accepting a position as the Worship Director at the church. During that time, he hooked up with Jeff Gordon and the rest of the band and helped found Nothing Regal. Nothing Regal was the praise band for the church, but so much more. We also accepted outside gigs and even in church sought to be more in the world but not of it, mixing spiritual truth from songwriters like U2, Van Morrison and Collective Soul into our worship sets. When the line-up stabilized, the band consisted of Jeff Gordon on vox, guitar, and mandolin, Sean Taylor on vox, harmonica, guitar, and occasionally bass when the situation necessitated it, Lee Henson on bass, Shawn "Swami" Loud on lead guitar and backing vox, Derek Keel on lead guitar, Carrie Eggers on keys, and Bill Rullan on drums. The band recorded three Christmas CDs for the church and community and wrote more than 20 original praise and worship songs for the congregation, before changing its name to Strawmakers and moving on to become a band outside Lakeland's congregational services. I have since stepped down from being worship director for Lakeland (but still play bass for the praise team) and am focusing on my new band, 22FIVE.

REIGN, Mach 2 (aka 22FIVE)

In early 2009, I hooked up with Brett and Stephen from the Reign days through the power of the Internet (Facebook to be exact, imagine that), and 22FIVE was born from the "Reign ashes." 22FIVE has taken on a new musical growth beyond the power pop of Reign, and has settled into a sort of heavy-progressive-modern-indie rock sound with Stephen on drums and vox, Brett on guitar and vox, and Sean on bass, keyboards, vox, harmonica and acoustic guitar. 22FIVE is currently scheduling concert dates and recording a new CD to be called Taller Than Trees and booking gigs.

Blue Mercy Cafe

One of my newest musical projects is called Blue Mercy Cafe. That's a catch-all "band" name to include stuff I do both alone and with friends that falls into the acoustic, folksy, art-hymn vein. This project includes songs that are more personal and very special to me: old hymns reworked with a coffeehouse feel , cover songs that have meaning to particular points in my life, and original songs about my understanding of the world around me. I'm working to soon finish recording 12 songs, both originals and a few selected cover songs, for a CD I plan to call Twelve Dirty Breadcrumbs, and after that perhaps CD full of reworked old hymns, to be tentatively called Solid. 

Instruments

Okay, since you asked (or not), here's what I play:

•  Washburn B15 bass with active pick ups
•  Fender Jazz bass
•  Alvarez acoustic guitar with electric pick up and ivory inlay on the neck (it's gorgeous) -- got from my dad
•  Fender Telecaster electric guitar
•  Ovation acoustic/electric guitar (not technically mine but a sort of semi-permanent loaner from my buddy Swami)
•  Truetone acoustic/electric guitar I inherited from my grandfather
•  set of Hohner harmonicas in various keys
•  piece of crap Yamaha keyboard that manages to get the job done
•  loaner Korg Triton work station that is still a mack-daddy powerhouse keyboard