Well, I began writing music in Holsby Brunn, Sweden in May of 2006. I could play acoustic, bass, and drums, but I could never play piano. Both my brothers were very good at piano, but my coordination wasn't very good. After being there for a month I sat down at the piano in the chapel and learned how to play "Boston" by Augustana by ear. After that I wrote "Amy Said No", "Dream Tonight" and "I Choose You" all within a month. I had no idea what chords I was playing; I just thought it sounded good. I could hear a scale, but couldn't tell you what it was that I was playing. Writing continued once I came back home, but not nearly as fast as in Sweden. In January of 2007 Eric Thielen of Simple Studios (Number One Fan "Compromises", Silent Point "We Were Lions"...) called me up and wanted to get dinner to talk about some things he'd been feeling. I had worked a little bit with Eric in September of '06 with Life! Promotions. Through an amazing opportunity brought by Eric, we decided to begin working on recording some of my songs. I was honored to bring friends into the studio to record the songs, including Dan Beck (formerly of Ivory), Jon Fries (Number One Fan, The Wildbirds), Mike Zieman (Number One Fan, The Wildbirds), and Jairo Mazariegos to name a few. Everything was very chill with scheduling getting up to the studio. So it took a long time, but it was worth it. We finished "The Allison EP" in July of 2007.
One belief I always had was that I never wanted to play a show until there was a solid sound that we could bring to the people who came. So we didn't play a show till the end of September. Soon after the first show several of the guys playing with me decided that playing this music wasn't the best place for them at this time. Since then it's been Mike Zieman on bass and me ..s and vocals. We've found that we do the best with a much mellower, low key sound. It works for what I want this music to be. To sum up exactly what I would want this music to be is simply something that allows people to open up and feel things that they usually wouldn’t. To simply open up a heart to feel pain or hurt that we usually numb out. When we sit and feel the pain, we grow like crazy into the people we were created to be. I want people to ask themselves questions that are hard to answer, because when we do, we grow. Mike and I will continue to play any venue that invites us, we wont constrain ourselves to any particular venue or crowd we want to meet. We will continue to write what comes to our hearts and if people see a fit for any of it, great, if not, oh well.-nate
