Brad was born November 10, 19?? in Merrill, WI. His early memories of music include the record player on Pine Street spinning 45's like "Nobody" by Sylvia, "Rock 'n' Roll Heart" by Eric Clapton, and all kinds of Oldies from his mom's collection. He also remembers the eight-track player in mom's old hornet, 'Cruinsin'' to Smokey Robinson, and many others.
His musical/geographical biography takes us to River Street in Merrill where the stereo in the living room played full records like the Footloose Soundtrack, Thriller by Michael Jackson, 1999 by Prince, Culture Club, Debarge, and Kenny Rogers. Can you tell it was the 80's!?! He remembers having a stereo in the first room with his brothers (before remodeling the house) and an eight-track version of Thriller recorded off the record. Brad memorized the whole thing, with all the skips in the recording!! Loser!!! This was approximately 2nd grade.
Sometime around 4th grade, Brad got his very own new stereo. No CD's yet, he had his own pretty nice collection of 45's, including "Human Nature" by Michael Jackson (his first 45, still one of his favorite tunes), "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" by Prince, "Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi, "Man in The Mirror" by Michael Jackson, "I Wanna Be Your Man" by Roger, "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leppard. His NEW stereo also had a cassette player!! Wierd Al Yankovic, New Kids On The Block, New Edition were some of his first cassettes.
The CD player was added to Brad's stereo sometime around 6th grade. Still at River Street, in his newly remodeled very own room, Brad's first 3 CD's were (he still has them) Bobby Brown, Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers, and The Beach Boys. Brad finally started getting a little GOOD taste in music when he "borrowed" James Taylor's Greatest Hits from his step-dad's collection. Brad can't say he still has that CD, nor can he say he returned it. He borrowed it himself to a friend about 10 years ago and hasn't seen it since. Anyway, his CD collection grew pretty much every time he had enough money to buy one.
High School years were Brad's first years as a performer, not just a fan, of music. His tastes in tunes turned towards sounds like Boyz II Men, R. Kelly, Babyface, etc, and he began singing that stuff all the time at his high school job at McDonalds. While it surely drove most of his co-workers nuts, some actually liked his singing. He noticed that girls noticed him when he sang. It always comes back to the ladies!! In a move that had nothing to do with ladies for sure, Brad joined the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. He was the only guy in the group under the age of 18. Come to think of it, he was the only guy in the group under the age of 50!! Brad credits barbershop singing for his ability to sing harmony with just about anyone. He also finally joined choir when he was a senior in high school, which led to the role of "Prince Dauntless The Drab" in his high school musical, "Once Upon A Mattress".
The summer after high school Brad found Garth Brooks, and country music. Early Tim McGraw and Collin Raye interested him. Coupled with James Taylor, country music probably first peaked his interest in guitar.
After high school, Brad attended UWGB for as a Music Education Major for one year. He loved music, but didn't neccessarily love UWGB. Plus, he was a kid. Parties and Girls were important, not papers and grades. The only classes he liked going to weren't classes at all; he never missed choir. He stuck around his music theory classes enough for a basic knowledge of that. He also began to learn piano, as required for his major. He wrote his first song, "The Believer Song." Written for a girl (of course), it was just his voice, no intruments at all. Don't ask him to perform, he can't remember most of it. He still listened to Boyz II Men, Garth Brooks, James Taylor.
He attended UW-Marathon County in Wausau on and off for the next few years. He began his student career there as an English Education Major. That didn't last. He switched back to music and did pretty good for a while, even on the honor roll for a semester. But it wasn't his thing. He loved to sing and write pop tunes, whether country or rock. He didn't want to teach kids how to sing. He didn't want to compose or sing classical music. Brad's love for James Taylor became quite obvious. His affection for anything with an acoustic guitar grew, so...
On April 3rd, 1997, Brad got his first guitar. It was a Yamaha Dreadnought Solid Top Acoustic. The first song he learned was a tune by Sister Hazel called "All For You." He still plays the song regularly at gigs. He also wrote what would become the first of many guitar accompanied originals, a tune called "The Power Of A Woman." He bounced between roommates, between Wausau and Merrill, between majors, between girls, but he always had his guitar.
He performed only in the choirs he was in around this time, still not good enough on the guitar. The first song he performed on guitar was as part of a show-choir show at UWMC. He performed "Margaritaville" with a drummer. Brad's pretty sure it was terrible. He continued to practice guitar and write. One of his earlier songs, "Stacey's Song," is probably one of his most loved. It's about his sister and is clearly influenced by his idol, James Taylor.
He was approached to join his first band around 2000. The band was called Winchester Hayes. Andy Ament played bass in the band and wanted a guy to sing high harmonies. The band was around in the 70's and it was sort of a reunion kind of gig. Brad got a crash course in guitar playing in a band type environment. He played two shows with the guys. It was a good start.
Around this time, a bunch of guys a few years younger than Brad, started a classic rock band. Bryan Olson, Nick Polak, Dooner Hoffman, and Brad Bonnell called themselves The Dukes. Brad had known Brad Bonnell for a few years, but didn't know anyone else until a mutual friend introduced him to Dooner. Dooner jammed in Brad's basement one night with a few other guys. The next night, Dooner brought Nick over to jam with us. The next night, a Friday night, Brad played his first gig as a Duke at The Arena in Merrill in April of 2000 (that date could be wrong, it's a guess).
The Dukes played just about every weekend for four years straight. Brad got better at guitar during that time, and continued to write original music. The Dukes regularly played two of Brad's original tunes, "The Ultimate" and "Online Aiesha." He started performing solo during the Duke run. His first solo show was at Les & Jim's. Early solo shows included venues like Legends Bar, and Otto's Brat & Beer Garden.
To Be Continued...