Birthdate: 5 December 1989
Locale: Fort Collins, Colorado (born and raised)

I was raised on bluegrass, rock & roll, limited folk, and the stray bit of Celtic music here and there, but never really listened to it of my own will. When I was eight years old, I discovered The Goo Goo Dolls, whose "Dizzy Up The Girl" album just blew me away. Mainly at that age, I was the kind of kid who'd listen to anything "trendy"-- hey, the rest of the general population of the States was listening to it, why shouldn't I? Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, The Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, and such were what I listened to. I knew early on that I would never, ever be able to figure out how to work a guitar or even a piano, so this was good music for me-- I could be a Pop Diva like Britney! How exciting this was to me. These artists multiplied like Tribbles, so it shouldn't be a problem for me to find my fortune in the market.

Soon this music went out of fashion, and I was left adrift; finally, I realised how very much I hated it, and that I hadn't really liked it to begin with, and went back to The Goo Goo Dolls.

When I was twelve, nearing thirteen, I discovered David Bowie and Glam rock. It was an amazing revelation for me-- men dressing like women and wearing makeup? What?-- and from the time I heard it, I loved it. Between Bowie's early work (his first album, released in 1968) and The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), I was spanning about fifteen years in music.

Soon I'd started throwing The Beatles' White Album in with my Glam CDs because it was just so delightfully strange, and I finally decided to see what the clamour about the rest of their work was. Like anyone, I knew a few songs here and there-- "A Hard Day's Night", "Yellow Submarine", "I Saw Her Standing There", et cetera-- but knew that this couldn't be their entire catalogue.

So I started listening. And listening. And listening. And soon I found that Paul McCartney's soulful brown eyes were a bit too much for me to handle, and John's sharp, snarky wit made me melt. George's guitar work left me astounded, and Ringo was just Ringo, and therefore irresistible-- he was my earliest "celebrity crush", at the age of six, when I saw (and didn't quite comprehend) "Caveman" for the first time. Who the hell were these boys, and who did they think they were? I looked them up, of course, and was astounded by their past. Their musicianship amazed me, and from the time I'd started listening to them, I consciously wanted to learn that. Not the fancy stuff George was doing-- I was into the steady strum, the rhythm, the driving guitar, that jangly thing in the background. That little black Rickenbacker that John was playing was making that gorgeous sound, and I had to learn how to do that.

I picked up a guitar, for the second time in my life-- after a failed attempt to learn from my folk musician father-- in May 2004, and bought "The Beatles Best" at a music store, and started just learning this unique concept: "a chord? What's that?". The first song I ever played well was "Across The Universe".

When I went in to the music store for something in July, I asked to play an electric, just to see what it was like. They set me up with a very large, very heavy Washburn, and let me play it-- it was fascinating. The guitar itself made next to no sound, and yet there was music coming from that little box by my foot. A novel concept.

The clerk asked my dad how long I'd been playing-- at the time, about eight weeks. When he heard this, he told my father "we've had students here for a year who don't play that well".

Then in August, I went to see "1964"... The Tribute for the first time, at Red Rocks natural amphitheatre. It was an epiphany-- these guys were doing what I wanted to do. Mark was John, like I wanted to be.

Encouraged, I started working harder, playing till my fingers were killing me, working far harder at it than I've ever worked at anything in my life, and on my fifteenth birthday, I was rewarded for all my hard work-- my dream guitar sat in my living room that morning. Not John's black three-quarters neck Rickenbacker 325, but the guitar I'd been going on about for months, a midnight blue Rickenbacker 360/6... the most beautiful thing in the world. I cried as I opened the case and played my first song on it.

On 30 December 2004, I got a John Lennon haircut and amazed even myself by looking like him.

Soon after, I recorded a .wav file of me singing and playing "I Want To Hold Your Hand"-- my best song, and the first I ever played on my Rickenbacker. I posted it on my blog, and Sara asked me if it would be alright to add a bass track. Excited, I said "yeah!", and so she did. It was fantastic, and I was incredibly happy. A friend of mine asked me to play "Ticket To Ride" next, so I agreed, and Sara added bass and her own vocals to this one-- it was even better than the first.

Then, just after fighting my way through a local event I was helping to organise, I recorded "I'll Be Back". We went through the same process, and turned out another great track.

We recently recorded "It's Only Love", which I truly adore-- it sounds fab, and the gratification I got from being able to play and sing it was like no other.

I'm one of those people who shows that anyone with enough drive and dedication can make real music. And it's incredible.