The founder of the Americana band the Happy Curmudgeons, he is a singer, songwriter, and guitar player. The band has over 1.5 million streams on Spotify and last year they won the W.A.M. (We Are The Music Makers) Music Award for Best Song in the Americana/Folk category. The rights to one of their songs were bought by Hallmark to use for one of their shows. The band is currently working on their next album, with a notable producer. In addition to there in Michigan, the Happy Curmudgeons have also been booked for shows in the likes of Ohio and Indiana. Their YouTube channel has 13 thousand subscribers and one video with almost 225 thousand views on it in approximately 18 months.
"That's the luxury of having live music and live entertainment, blending together to get your sound to where you want it to be."
"And he goes, 'Seriously, who's gonna want to see a couple of happy curmudgeons like us?' And I went, 'Oh my God!' And he went, 'Absolutely not.' And I said, 'That's it! ... Yes, I'm gonna go with this'."
"She's a phenomenal singer. When we first started dating, she sandbagged me and took me to a karaoke bar and let me get up first and then thoroughly embarrassed me."
"Lou (Reed) said... 'I think you're one of the best songwriters here' ... 'Care about finding your audience, 'cause you will. Just keep writing'."
"I got involved at Miami (University in Ohio)... playing secondary gigs... and, coming back from one of my shows... next thing you know... Neil Young came out, and, one of the most genuine individuals... He talked to me for 15-20 minutes."
"The best advice (Neil Young) gave me, 'Ya' know, don't take those gigs for granted because you're playing in front of people and you're also making them happy. But here's my best advice to you. I don't care if it's one person in the room or a thousand, give them the same show because when you do that, you never know who you're going to be impressing in that room.' So, I really took that to heart."
"I saw a singer songwriter that was opening, for all people, the 10,000 Maniacs... very small and intimate place. This singer songwriter got up, did her set, came up, sat next to me at the bar, I bought her a beer, and she said her album was coming out the next day, and it turned out to be Tracy Chapman... She actually spent some time, had a drink with me there."
"I was approached about had I ever given any idea to playing on jingles and just some side commercials... So, I started doing that on the side as a great way to make money."
"I would stress that to anybody who's out there, when you do have some material you can put up -- even while you're submitting to these streaming services -- make sure you have something solid on YouTube... I'm very pleased with how this has grown. We started off with 500 subscribers and we're over 13 thousand now."
"A lot of people that we know and other musicians have really been stifled. They're just kind of out of it. I don't want to say they're necessarily depressed but they're just not being creative. And that's been the exact opposite for us."
"ReverbNation has actually been a really good springboard for us. We've got over 300 thousand streams on there. And that led to us getting onto Spotify... We have over 1.5 million streams on Spotify now."
"Second Chances"
"I Know How You Feel"