When I got into music in junior high, my natural inclination was to gravitate to the drums. My other friends had picked up playing the stringed rock instruments, so it was really my only natural choice. I still remember coming home from school in grade eight and to my delight my parents had purchased and laid out all over the kitchen, my very first drum kit. It was a bottom on the barrel kit with no bells or whistles, however, it would be more than enough for me. I played that kit every night after school with my friends Phil, Paul and Alex on bass and guitar. I had no formal training, so these jams would be my lessons and Green Day would be my teacher. We called ourselves Shiny Pencil and recorded a track list of covers straight to tape . We had the audacity to sell those tapes to the other kids at school. We were in fact, the only “band” in our grade and immediately started to gain a little bit of attention. We didn’t know what to do with the attention. Shit, we weren’t even musicians at this point. But, that’s not where this story is going. Years later, when I was actually playing shows in serious high-school rock bands, I sold that first drum kit of mine to Dean.

Dean had no idea what to do with the drums. He didn’t understand what he was hearing, I guess. He just hit everything at random and would tell me that he learned how to play “Voodoo” by Godsmack.  I told him that that was not “Voodoo”. So, I picked up a guitar to demonstrate rhythm, and The Dean Project was born.

My first guitar was a blue Telecaster. And boy, was it ever a piece of shit. I scraped all the paint off with a Loonie and had the ugliest Zebra striped strap. I would head over to Dean’s Mom’s house, climb down to the basement where the now junk drums lay with this guitar and we create our brand of noise pollution. I remember Dean had this old boom box that had a record function. He suggested we record an album. I laughed, of course. “What album? What songs? What band? Jesus Christ, Okay, hit record.”

We recorded whatever came to mind at the time. The songs I remember most were “Big House on Wheels” and a horrendous version of “In Da Club”. Embarrassing as it was, I loved it. I couldn’t sing or play. Dean couldn’t sing or play. But, I guess that`s what made me love it so much. There was always an energy between Dean and I. We loved music. But more than that, we loved playing with people perception of us. We shared a common love for what I called art and he called work. “Work” is an old carnie term for swindle or lie. And I guess that we did a lot of work, but it was never to take money from people. It was never a bait and switch type situation because we weren’t, and never wanted to be, business people. So, I would tell him that it’s not work if it’s purely to tell a story and bend people’s perceptions. Everything we gave, was 100% genuine because of how much we loved the lifestyle, the culture and everything that goes along with being in an indie band.  Sure, we had gimmicks and merch. But, seldom were we seen tending to our “inventory” or “profit margin”. No, we were chillin’, smokin’, talking with people. It was the human aspect, though through workers eyes, that kept us glued to the lifestyle.