The founder of and guitarist for the alternative rock group Kickstand Jenny. In June the band released a ten-song album featuring some notable contributors, with one of the songs already having well over a hundred thousand streams on Spotify, where they have more than twenty thousand monthly listeners. On the live performance front, the band has shared the stage with notable headliners such as Slaughter, Living Colour, Sebastian Bach, and L.A. Guns. Last year the band signed with Spectra Music Group, and the videos on their official YouTube channel have a combined total of almost 1.7 million views.
“I’ve changed the way I write songs now. I actually demo them out myself before I even go to the studio. And I’ll listen to ‘em over and over and over ‘cause you wouldn’t believe how much you’ll add to it, or, ya’ know, the re-write is important to me.”
“When Covid hit they canceled all the shows, so, there’s nothing to do really musically, so I was able to – it was almost like a blessing in disguise – I was able to sit back and finish these songs.”
“It was kind of over in my head. I didn’t know if I really wanted to spend much more time, effort, money, and energy into it… I knew once I, if I ever quit – and I’ve been in a lot of bands and I’ve played with a lot of people and I’ve had a lot of people quit, and I tell ‘em all, man, you’re never gonna really quit. You’ll always have it in your blood. You’ll always want to come back and do it again.”
“We recorded… right outside of Nashville. The studio is called Secret Sound Studios and it’s ran by Chas Sandford… He has written songs for Chicago. He wrote a huge hit for John Waite called, ‘Missing You’ … wrote for Stevie Nicks, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, and he’s produced all those people, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Roger Daltrey.”
“We were like a party band, and we did a lot of covers and stuff, so, when I moved to Florida that was kinda what I wanted to do just to get away from the original stuff ‘cause it’s a mountain to climb when you’re trying to play originals anywhere.”
“That’s what you need. In order to be successful, longevity is important. In order for longevity to happen, you have to be loyal, and you have to bite your tongue when you don’t want to.”
“From what I was reading and understanding, is, a lot of (record) labels, they don’t really want to put too much effort into who they sign, and so if you have all the work done for them, it really helps to get the deal.”
“I spent about six months just shopping around labels and we actually had three deals on the table.”
“For YouTube… if you really want to be successful with it you really have to take the time and do it right… The magic is how you post it. There’s certain tags you can use, there’s these landing videos that you add to the beginning and the end – these links – the hashtags, the @ signs, there’s just so many little secrets and tricks. It’s all based on the algorithm. So, you just have to kind of figure out what works and make it work for you. The playlisting is important – getting on other playlists.”
“One More Day”
“Take Me Back to the Time”