The Half Past Two Story: Country Dave Edition

Hey we have a theme going, great because I'm terrible at thinking up blog ideas!

I guess I blame my mom for this whole thing, her and her guitar. When I was a kid she'd get out the acoustic guitar and sing old folk tunes and we'd all sing along. To this day I can tell you all about the plight of The Blacksmith of Brandywine (make it one for Washington and all his gallant men, one for the girl that once was mmmiiinnneee...).

When I got to middle school I figured, "I like singing, I guess I'll join the choir." So I joined, almost sang with Tara, got stood up by some bitch named Katelyn Reynolds one night, and sang "In bridges she burned or the way that he died" solo in Seasons of Love, etc. At the end of 8th grade I actually got an award for being the boy most willing to go out and make an ass of himself in front of people (please ask Tara about I'm Screaming at a White Sheepdog for more info on this subject).

During the summer between 8th and 9th grade my friend (the aforementioned) Doug Carter told me he'd started a band. Instead of telling you the story of what happen with this I'll give you my thought process right after he said this:

Holy crap, a band, I want to be in a band, I could play piano, oh wait Doug's playing piano...I could learn a horn, no Doug says he has a bunch of them already.....GUITAR! Mom does it and it doesn't look too hard!

"Does your band need a guitar player"

"Do you know how to play guitar Dave?"

"no."

"Do you own a guitar?"

"no."

"Sure you can be in our band."

So one chord dictionary/trip to the music store later I was in a band playing guitar!

(free jeff era Dave guitar)

After that band quit my friend Jeff and I decided we wanted to start a ska band, Free Jeff was born. Check out Tyler's post for the links to all that. What's important to remember about Free Jeff is that we held one core value, that ska wasn't just dead, it was Uber dead.

Right after Free Jeff ended I decided, "that's it, ska bands are too much work, too many people, I'm never going to be in a ska band again." A few months later I joined Bad Ash, pre-existing ska band looking for a guitar player and new drummer. This is where I met a man named Dustin Richardson (check out the writing credits in It's About Time to find out why this is important).

(Dave and Dustin, BFFS FO' EVAR!)

Bad Ash broke up (after we recorded an EP that to this day I've never actually heard), and I mentioned to Dustin (the drummer of Bad Ash), that I'd like to start a punk band someday. Out of that idea came the Anti-Fun Society. We wrote songs, put out an album that when back and forth between okay and terrible, played a bunch of pay to play shows, and broke up before album number two was done.

(a tune you may recognize)

FUN FACT: I was at the very first HP2 show in the crowd, Tyler was in it, Snuggles was in it, I figured I'd check it out. By all accounts the first show was not very good (sorry guys), but they had this crazy energy on stage, and I knew I had to be a part of that. After the show I talked to the guys and said, "um.....hey, you need a keyboard player?" The rest, as they say, is history.