I’ve been a musician practically all of my life. I started with a couple years of piano lessons in elementary school, but eventually graduated to electric bass early in high school. Ever since then it’s been rare for more than a couple months to go by where I wasn’t actively playing in a band or working on some kind of music project.
These days I have plenty of irons in the fire with all of the other work we’re doing at the Wood Stove House like organizing house concerts, producing experimental theater projects, or interviewing Lancaster area artists and art facilitators for our podcast, Around the Wood Stove. So periodically I ask myself why I still bother making time to play.
The answer is pure inspiration. Music is my creativity catalyst. It can serve as a calm background soundtrack when I have to concentrate, a boost of energy in the middle of the afternoon when things get slow, or the platform for an intense and magical artistic experience. Nothing can move me into a state of creative inspiration quite like experiencing the perfect song at the perfect moment…when it all comes together. Whether that experience is listening to a favorite record by another artist, or participating in the writing, recording, or performing process myself, music is truly what drives me.
Central PA has turned out to be a seemingly endless source of incredible music; the kind of music that gets me excited to get out and make things happen! I could bore you with a laundry list of amazing musicians that I love, but I’d rather hear from you.
What Central PA music lights your fire? Where else do you find creative inspiration?
P.S. currently in the earbuds: Carry On by Like Wild (reminds me of Ryan Adams, Cowboy Junkies, Chris Isaak)
