I first started playing around with a guitar because my uncle Dave put on a show called disco Dave, where he would dress up like Elvis, Jim Morrison and Buddy Holly and play fun cover versions of their classic songs. There was usually a guitar laying around and I think I remember picking it up quite a bit and thinking that it was an awesome instrument! My brother Sam had a guitar later on and I ended up playing around on that which led to me asking my parents for lessons. The first music that I latched onto was My Chemical Romance and Buckcherry.
The cover band at 16 was called “off the rocker”. I played guitar, Adam Dooley played drums, Aaron Harris played bass and Kyle Jorgensen fronted. We played covers of Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and other music like that-it was always rock-based and a little bit towards the southern rock style.
Most of the time songs just pop into my head – melodies and little snippets of riffs and things that I’ll pull out my voice memos and record, later pulling them together into a full song. I can’t really tell you how many times that I’ve sat down to write… The new music is just constantly cranking up there in my head.
What has inspired my different sounds/ genres over the years, I think, has been from feeling of emotions from different sounds of music- like, feeling excited when I hear The Struts and then feeling calm and relaxed When I hear Maggie Rogers or U2. It has made me want to be apart of all kinds of music and has made me realize that each of these emotions can be expressed through different styles.
My first favorite band was probably My Chemical Romance-my mom wouldn’t really let me download the songs unless I printed out the lyrics – so, on some of the inappropriate ones, I would copy and paste the lyrics into Microsoft Word and change them a bit so that they would be acceptable for me to download.. love you mom! I later on was hugely influenced by Foo Fighters and Dave Grohl. He will always play a pretty huge role in my life and is a huge reason for the way I present my craft and songs.
My favorite new band is by far the Struts. They set the bar for rock music right now and I crank to them everyday. I hope they read this so they know that I think they’re doing everything right and that I always want more Struts! I am also a pretty big fan of Maggie Rogers- I was in the front row for her set at Hinterland, IA this year – great set!
A couple of my favorite Iowa artists are Brenton Dean (Holy White Hounds and Soak The Master) and Eli Clark (Other Brothers). I like pretty much every single thing that those guys do and always looking forward to their new releases.
Halen and I were introduced by my friend and kick bassist Adam Dooley. After a year or so of dating, we moved in together and after about a year of living together, we started working on music together – drums first. A few months into learning, she was playing a full drum kit/singing live at shows and we were rocking out using backing tracks. It was fun. A few months of shows in this style and she decided that she would like to play guitar more and to be upfront which ended up being the most solid version of “kemble the band”, in my opinion.
After about a year of playing , Halen decided that she wanted to take a break from our relationship, which led to the end of our personal and musical relationship.
This release was started over a year ago with the song “While I’ve got you by the ear”. I was introduced to Brandon Darner by my friend Josh Davis and Brandon was kind enough to agree to doing a track with me which was originally thought to be a single. We ended up working really well with each other and this led to us recording “work this thing out” at Magic Barn Studios. I had a really special experience especially during this song in the studio – an overwhelming feeling of comfort and well being brought on by the music and the space we were in. Brandon and his engineer/assistant Micah Natera bring music to a new level.
Halen and our breakup inspired me to immediately record “Take This Hurt” and add it to the EP .. this song had previously been written but was never recorded.. “The Color Dark Blue” was also previously written and recorded with Producer/engineer Adam Szczepaniak in MN – but I wanted to have the track remix/mastered and to bring it on this release to further express what I was/am going through.
The EP is meant to be listened to loud and I am hopeful that it can be therapeutic for people who are going through emotional turmoil and find some comfort in this music.
The lyrics are important but most of my music is focused on the melody and sounds and vibrations.
I am writing new songs every single day. It is my goal to always have a new release date on the calendar. I am working hard so that I can be in the studio multiple times a month for both my rock band Kick and my solo music. I plan to play many shows this year solo and as Kick and to connect with everyone on earth who likes music! Thanks for reading and Rock out!
