usic 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).

With my brother and neighbors, we hammed it up to the music of the Clique, Five Man Electrical Band, KISS 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.

I'm currently the bass player/vocalist for the Christian modern rock band, 22FIVE.

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REIGN

Between 1988 and 1993 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.

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Church Bands

In the years after Reign broke up, I spent a lot of my time playing bass and singing 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). 

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st:trax

Back in 2003, I released my first solo CD of "electronic-infused garage rock," Pop Nightmare, under the working "band" name of st:trax and released the second, Dreaming and Other Diversions, in 2006.

What does it sound like? I like to think it sounds like modern incidental music from TV shows and movies, 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.

I'm currently putting together a 2-volume "best of" st:trax CD called Rocktronica, which will also feature a few new songs.

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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, I 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. Eventually the band changed its name to Strawmakers and moved on to become a band outside Lakeland's congregational services while I remained to lead worship at the church.

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22FIVE

Shortly after my departure from Nothing Regal 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 started jamming together again only to find the magic was still there -- and 22FIVE was born from the "Reign ashes."

22FIVE has taken on a new musical growth beyond the power pop of Reign, and 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. After playing as a three piece for a little more than a year, we boys added lead vocalist Brittany Wilcox and guitarist Paul Borge to the mix and are ready to begin the new era of 22FIVE.

22FIVE is currently scheduling concert dates and has recorded a new CD called Paint a Picture.

For booking info, please email booking@22five.com or visit our Gig Salad profile or our Sonic Bids EPK.

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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 of reworked hymns, to be tentatively called Solid. 

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Instruments

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