Brandon I.

My name is Brandon, and I am a 22 year old musician/songwriter. Fascinated by music early in life, my parents could tell it would be a part of who I am. What they didn't know, was how big a part of me it would become. All my life I had taken interest in singing. I cannot give a certain date/year, because I have been singing for as long as I can remember. As a child, you aren't able to hear truly how good or bad you sound, but what I can remember is that I would try to mimic the vocalist's shape and tone in each song. Almost as if it was second nature to attempt to "copy" their voice. I say attempt because it took me until I got to be about 13ish to really begin to figure out how to shape and modify my voice structure, and mold it to theirs. As I approached the age of 8, I had decided to join the percussion section of my school's 3rd grade band. Unfortunately not being what I was hoping to be, I found myself disinterested. Not for lack of interest in learning music, but in the music that was being taught, as well as how it was being taught. Seeing this, my father decided to invest in getting me a full drum kit. It was just a 4-peice First Act "starter" drum kit, with a20" kick drum, 2 rack toms, a floor tom, some cheap beat up high-hats, and a crash cymbal. I combined that with the brand new 14" Pearl snare drum that my grandparents had bought me when I joined the schools band, and I was ecstatic! My dad started me off with the standard 4/4 beat, and I had gotten some pointers from my cousin, Garrett Scanlon (drummer of 20+ years), to help me further learn. With those few tips and tricks I just started playing along to band's thatg I loved. In the beginning, I didn't know a whole lot, but I had some general knowledge, and the standard 4/4. Having Rock N' Roll flow through my veins since birth, who better to follow in the beginning than Phil Rudd of AC/DC? Unmistakenly held together by a strong, percussion-based backbone; Phil Rudd nearly trademarked the standard 4/4 beat, in that it was heavily used throughout much of AC/DC's compositions. As I continued practicing, I followed many rock legends such as Phil Collins (Genesis), Matt Cameron (Soundgarden/Pearl Jam), Keith Moon (The Who), Jon Bonham (Led Zeppelin), Neil Peart (Rush). Starting with easier works, and slowly progressing up the scale of difficulty, even to this day. Just before my 13th birthday, I had decided to pick up my first guitar. It was a brown/white First Act electric guitar, which I am currently rebuilding. I started of watching YouTube videos, trying to learn the basic chords, and techniques. Again starting off with classics, such as "Smoke On The Water" (Deep Purple), "Iron Man" (Black Sabbath), again progressing to more difficult songs as I got better. Lacking a teacher to show me the next steps, I utilized what tools I had. (YouTube, Rocksmith, Guitar forums, Google, etc.) There are pros and cons to everything, but in my opinion, this way of learning gave me a unique approach to playing the guitar. As I progressed on guitar, I began writing songs. Intrigued by poetry, and the limitless creativity of lyrics, I studied all types of poets, songwriters, screenplays, any written form of art I could find. To learn to write songs is as if to learn a new language. Music is the most powerful form of media, as it sends you through a journey inside of itself, grasping your emotions, and pulling them to the surface. Growing up, one of my favorite lyricists was Pat Monahan (Train). "Now that she's back in the atmosphere, drops of Jupiter in her hair. She acts like summer and walks like rain, reminds me that there's a time to change, yeah." ('Drops Of Jupiter' by Train) I was astounded by the unlimited ways that songs allow you to tell a story. It's about the feeling. It's about making yourself, and everybody else feel an emotion. The emotion is the message, and the words are just the method of transporting that feeling to other people, and that fascinated me. In October 2014, I co-founded my band, A Story Unwritten, alongside my little brother, Dominic. I currently am remain co-founder, manager, lead vocalist, guitarist, and head songwriter of the band. My biggest influences stemming from the 90's grunge band's, I shaped my vocal style after a combination of my two biggest inspirations: Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) & Chris Cornell (Soundgarden/Temple Of The Dog/Audioslave). Though our band is most heavily influenced by the 90's grunge era, we have pulled influences from all era's of rock n' roll, attempting to create something "new", and ultimately finding the sound that we now refer to as, A Story Unwritten.