A World Beyond: Chapter One

“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain.” – Bob Marley

Music saved my life. It has been a consistent, reliable source of joy for as long as I can recall. In music, I find truth and beauty, comfort and solace. In music, I recognize my mind. Rhythm and melody speak to the soul directly. Music is, in many ways, the purest art form. Where the wood and metal meet the flesh, emotion is transmuted into sound. When voices are raised in true expression, the universe resonates with a sympathetic vibration. Music is magic.

I wrote my first song when I was 12 years old, using a tiny Casio keyboard I received as a Christmas present that year. The song was terrible, but it allowed me to express myself in a clear, direct and powerful way. I had been a troubled kid, moody and intense, prone to fits of rage and periods of solitary brooding. I channeled the frustration and anxiety I felt as a misunderstood preteen into my clumsy and naïve compositions. I wrote about aliens and horror movies, but really, the subject matter was irrelevant. It was sublimation of the highest order.

My introduction to the energy and power of heavy metal music was earthshaking and life-changing. By the time I was 14, I had long hair, an earring, and an array of black T-shirts emblazoned with the logos of all my favorite bands. My bedroom became a veritable shrine to metal. Maiden, Priest, Sabbath, AC/DC, Metallica, G N’ R…my hunger was insatiable. I yearned to be on a stage, rockin’ out like my outlaw heroes. In the music and lifestyles of the groups I admired I saw a way to escape what I perceived as a life of captivity. As a teenager, the world seemed like a soul-crushing automaton factory, designed to obliterate original thought and drain the vitality of the individual. To a sensitive and creative kid, society can seem extremely threatening.

Holding a real electric guitar for the first time was an incredible experience. It was a cheap sunburst Strat knockoff made by a company that no longer exists, but it felt wonderful in my hands. It was like a weapon, which I could wield in my quest to annihilate banality and conquer the dull. It gave me confidence, it gave me an identity. The guitar was the conduit between my imagination and the external world, which suddenly felt full of promise and opportunity. I spent hours alone in my room, practicing and posing, preparing to rock the planet. Actually learning how to play the thing was not a priority at that time.

In 1992 my family and I moved from Kitchener, Ontario to the cold, rough, and isolated town of Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. I left behind my best friends and the familiar, comfortable streets of my neighborhood. The upheaval intensified my moody nature. It wasn’t long before my relatively normal teenage angst spiraled downward into real crisis. I descended into a profound depression, spending weeks hiding away in my room, with music as my prime comforter. I never gave up hope, though, that I would find my niche in life and that I would find a way to express and purge the pain in my heart. I believe firmly that my creative pursuits, including visual art and writing, kept me from succumbing entirely to the dark thoughts that swirled in my young mind.

I fantasized constantly about starting a band. The idea transcended music – a band represented a brotherhood, a union of like-minds, an entity stronger than the sum of its parts. Music, like all forms of art and self-expression, has the potential to go beyond entertainment. It can become a vehicle for ideas, and a mode of communication that can effect real social change. The right people with the right message at the right time can change the world for the better. I longed to connect with the right people.

Sometime in my second year of high school I finally found what I had been seeking.

To be continued...