In the late fall of 2000, the first real band i was in, 3 Penny Opera, had just broken up. Some of us were entering our last year or years in college and i wanted to be able to say i had started a band, defined its sound, created some songs, and made a record i could be proud of for the rest of my life.
I started by getting a few great musicians together to record a couple of songs i had been writing in the bedroom on acoustic guitar. i knew i wanted a bigger sound than that and so paul, jim, and i, went into producer and friend j.r. taylor's apartment/recording studio and we cut a single called "forever" December 31st 2000. we finished mixing and mastering about 15 minutes to midnight, making it quite possibly one of the last songs done in the last millennium. pretty exciting stuff, eh?
We got our friend tres as the drummer and became a band. like any band we were really bad at first. i couldnt sing (some still say that hasnt changed), paul thought the music trite, tres was cool but noncommital, and jim was quiet. but we put it together and made it work for three slow but steady improving shows. sure there were setbacks. playing in a shit club like 6 of clubs, which was previously the metro, which was previously the mercury, which was previously....(you get the point) to a handful of people was aight. but it was a far cry from what i was feeling with 3PO. to top it off after we had been together for 3 months, and were planning a demo, paul left the group for a job in houston.
we recorded the demo with jim's old bassist braden and it turned out pretty darn decent. we actually got him around to play a show with us as well so we were up to about 5 shows when tres decided to leave back home to houston and braden got accepted to UNT to major in double bass (yeah, he's that good).
so for the next six months in 2001, jim and i were trying out bassists, drummers, and working our songs out acoustically practicing twice a week down at the music lab on st. elmo in austin where we had a lock out on a room. then in january 2002, while walking through campus heading to class at UT, i ran into my old friend danny from high school, asked him if he was still playing the drums and he said he was. i asked him if he'd like to try out for the band, he said he was looking for a project. so there ya go. we tried him out and while a little rough around the edges, his enthusiasm and willingness to learn and be a role player in the band were enough. it was something to build on.
danny was also instrumental in bringing richard to us from the Afro-pop ensemble that he was currently in on campus. while richard was a guitar player by nature (a good one at that) danny thought he'd come in and fill bass duties quite easily. he came in and learned our entire catalogue at that time (a whopping 8 songs!!!) in one night. we were impressed to say the least. so we had a band again...yay!!!
we played our first "serious permanent yeah this is a real band" show as chloe's honey in May 2002 at a U2 tribute night for Bono's Birthday. it benefitted austin area's meals on wheels which began our long running philanthropic nature (read: playing for everyone else to get paid BUT us...i kid).
that show was everything i had imagined. it was a packed house. we played to at least 250 people and the music was solid. my voice had improved, the songs got tighter, jim built up the courage to play his now trademark amazing stupifying solos, and the tight rolling rhythm section had people pogoing on the floor. it was that 3 penny opera high i used to feel times 100. we were getting offers to play shows based on the audience reaction after that show & i figured the sky was the limit for this band...
