I was born in 1974 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the second of two children. I lived briefly on the island of Cape Cod but was raised mostly in Northeastern Oklahoma in an area known as "Green Country," nearly equidistant from Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. I spent the better part of my infancy unwillingly engaged in a series of government sponsored experiments in sound. Giant headphones were placed over my ears twice daily while a random series of tonal patterns was generated from a self-modulating synthesizer. Though facts surrounding the study are spotty, I have since learned that the experiments were suspended in 1976 due to the lack of funding but the tests yielded an unlikely byproduct in the multi-volume "Soothing Sounds for Baby" record set released later that same year.

When I was 5 years old my conversion to Christianity came at the invitation of a singing cowboy evangelist stricken with a form of dwarfism severe enough that during the first half of the century he had made a living in Hollywood as a stunt stand-in for women and children in the western movies of the time. His name was Little George Havens and I was so affected by him that, once sure of my salvation, I talked my mother into forking out some hard-earned cash for his LP record which included a version of The Battle Hymn of the Republic with completely rewritten lyrics. It is still in my collection to this day and my faith in Jesus is still intact.

When I was in 3rd grade I played fiddle in the local Senior Citizens Club band. I was the only member under the age of 60. Each week my mother dropped me off for rehearsals at the Sertoma Center where there were always plenty of blue-haired groupies keeping the coffee warm. That same year we did a Christmas tour of local elementary school cafetorinasiums but life on the road with a bunch of oldies was too much for me so I decided to go solo the following January.

Throughout my grammar school days it was not uncommon for me to develop a mild case of Scarlet Fever around the same time in February each year. As a result, I attended very few class Valentine's parties and I still have anxiety about how to properly observe this holiday.

I began shaving my face when I was 12 years old. I was the only boy in my 7th grade class who needed to at that point.

My first band as a young teenager was a Monkees tribute outfit known as "The Cuddly Toys." One night at a community center dance it was discovered that we played our own instruments and the crowd was so enraged that we had to escape through the kitchen door and hide in the alley until the parking lot was clear.

I began to take songwriting seriously while attending college and living in Northwestern Arkansas, and performed whenever I could in local coffee houses, churches, and living rooms. I learned how to play SOMETHING on every instrument I could get my hands on at this time; dulcimer, accordion, mandolin, lap steel guitar. As a result I somewhat become a jack of all trades but a master of none. In 1998 I relocated to Tennessee where I finished school and spent a few years writing, playing, starting a family, and examining my own art and the motives behind it. In 2001 I began writing and recording the songs that would eventually make up "Far Cry From Gone" which I finally put out in the summer of 2007.