For a long time I wanted to make my mark in the music industry. I grew up in a very small town until age 5. After my sister was born, my parents made the jump to purchase their first home – our first home. They were approved and we moved in. And that’s where it began – in that house – my discovery of something bigger than the world I was use to.

You see, from ages birth to 5, we lived in a brick house, on a dirt road. We rented from a farmer , and our backyard was a vast corn field butting up against an acre. That was my entire world. I had only attended church. My social interactions were limited to the gospels, and the occasional visits to one set of grandparents or the other. I did start school at age 4 – Kindergarten 4 as it was called at a christian academy not too far from our rental. Everything was closed off. That is until we moved to K-town.

Up to this point we had basic television, and one day after arrive home from kindergarten, there was a little black box on top of our Zenith 19” color television. The black box had a dial and on that dial was a configuration of numbers 2-30. We didn’t have a remote, so my parents instructed me that I had to turn the dial to change the channel. While they were in the kitchen I browsed the various channels, until suddenly, I stopped.

There on the screen was a man with curly dark hair wearing a deep purple suit, playing a guitar, surround by other musicians playing their varied instruments. Glamorous. I had never seen anything like it. It was Prince and The Revolution on MTV, and the video was When Doves Cry – from the soundtrack of his movie Purple Rain (all of which I learned later). That moment, even at such a young age, I was smitten with the idea that there was much more for me to discover. Video after video, year after year, I witnessed trend after trend and felt so many things. And then came Headbangers Ball and 120 Minutes. I fell in love with it all. Everything it made me feel. Every tear I cried. Finally, at age 13 I received my first instrument. I did the standard “How do I play this song, or this song” with my instructor, but oddly enough, I found comfort in playing with feedback.

Perhaps in retrospect I could say it was my neurodivergence showing me who I was, but I connected with noise pretty early. But lacking the knowledge of its acceptance until many years later, I masked and connected with music that others found more acceptable. Noise placed me in these trancelike states of mind that I didn’t understand. It created an atmosphere that felt comforting. I could feel the frequencies working their way through me. I could feel everything fade away as if I was connecting beyond any type of reality.

As I became older, I left home and found a world where atmosphere was appreciated. I see these days skirting the edge of something great, holding back from the fear of losing an audience. And I fell into that trap after getting signed to a DIY label. But now, I don’t think about what other’s feel toward me. I compose or set my tools to generate a space that feels like home within the frequencies.