History as Seen by Me

Concept: History as Seen by Me -- Date: June 8-9, 2009 -- Terminal has had a lot to do with Nelson and the Alexanders’ history. Terminal was a band from Mansfield, TX, who gained a large local following as the band Letter Twelve, and then signed to Tooth and Nail Records along with having a name-change. This band, led by Travis Bryant, released only one album before going through some struggles that would eventually lead to the band’s demise. Mr. Bryant, however, tried very hard to keep the band together. Terminal still went on tour, and Mr. Bryant enlisted the help of friends to be Terminal’s touring members. On one tour, (in the winter of 2005-2006 I do believe), Taylor Tremaine was one of those friends. But we’ll talk more about that later. -- Taylor, fresh out of high school after graduating with the class of 2005, joined a band called Doulos, with old friends/acquaintances Rob Privitt, Danny Gonzalez, and Brandon Reynolds, as the new frontman (or co-frontman, rather). The band soon renamed themselves The Arson, and their music would help bring Taylor new opportunities and steer him towards the music he writes today. The music was very melodic, with touches of screaming only done to give the songs an aural landscape of heaviness without being truly heavy. The vocals were very sonic (think The Receiving End of Sirens) with many harmonies and overlapping vocals. They did not use electronics because their guitars by-far filled the musical void, with an Orange amplifier carrying the rhythm as Taylor and Rob switched off playing guitar riffs, which commonly drifted and swung throughout entire songs. One of my favorite moments, conversely, was when they played riffs together, harmonizing each other’s every note. Danny usually kept to the background, but he never missed a beat, his bass-playing constantly syncing the guitars and the drums. The drums were helmed by Brandon, who was an absolutely phenomenal drummer for the reason that he would never do anything unless it was clearly unique. This special brand of drumming helped push The Arson to a unique realm of music, at least in my mind. These people were great artists who together wrote great music. Their debut performance at the Door in Dallas, which I still have on tape, remains to be one of my most favorite performances of all time. Those first five songs were marvelous. But behind the scenes, there were clearly discords between how the different members wanted the music to be and how they felt it should be written. But suddenly, as the band was doomed to move on to different paths, something interrupted the band altogether. -- Taylor was asked to go on tour with Terminal by Taylor’s friend, Mr. Travis Bryant. Taylor has been playing guitar since the year 2000 and was surely good enough to take up the offer of being a seasonal member of Terminal. They went on a tour with Daphne Loves Derby, Amber Pacific, and Paramore. This was Taylor’s first touring experience, and it was a fine one. It didn’t last very long, but it gave Taylor a good idea of what touring would be like. Even more, the music of Terminal helped Taylor push himself away from the hardcore and post-hardcore music he had been wallowing in and start playing music that had more melody and brightness. (It was also around this time, or actually a year prior, when Taylor began focusing seriously on singing and learning vocal techniques to turn him into a strong vocalist.) But when Terminal’s drummer quit, the band simply couldn’t stand on two feet any longer, so Taylor got to go home. The Arson was there waiting for him. -- But as I hinted previously, The Arson were not going to last much longer. They went to record a bundle of new songs with a local producer named Geoff Rockwell when the break-up occurred. It happened right after they had finished recording the drums. One member called it quits, and he wouldn’t even allow the band to finish the recordings they had started, as proposed by other members. And so that was the end. (Observation: At this time, Geoff Rockwell was not a very well-known man, or at least not to the extent that he is now. He would soon thereafter record songs for a new band named Forever the Sickest Kids, who exploded into popularity. From this point forward, Rockwell would record and produce songs for many bands, many of whom would receive offers from major recording labels such as Universal. Ex-Arson members speculate that if they had finished those recordings and stayed together, they most likely would have gotten onto a label and would henceforth be in a much different place than they are now. Even though I loved The Arson’s music, both I and the ex-members are glad the break-up occurred.) Meanwhile, there was a Californian band Taylor much adored, named Lorene Drive, whom The Arson made sure to play with every time the band came to Texas. Taylor became good friends with the band upon their visits, and he kept going to all of their Texas shows even after The Arson broke up. The singer, Daniel Murillo, came to Taylor at one point and asked if he could play the bass guitar. You see, Daniel wasn’t just the singer of Lorene Drive, but also the bassist. He had decided, however, that he wanted to try out having a separate bassist so he could focus on being a good vocalist. Even though Taylor didn’t have much practice at the bass, he knew he could play and quickly took up Daniel’s offer to go touring with Lorene Drive. -- Taylor’s time in Lorene Drive was many things: long, fun, eye-opening, exciting, tiring, full-of-learning, and loud. It was during this time that Taylor truly got a taste for touring. (In Terminal, Taylor had been gone for no longer than a month, and if I remember correctly, I believe they just toured the west and southwest of the United States. I want to say his time out with Lorene Drive lasted from summer to fall of 2006.) He was touring for months, and he only came home twice or thrice, when the band had performances in Dallas. He began his journey on a tour with As Cities Burn, Jonezetta, and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. He started off just playing one song a night but was soon playing full sets. The band then hopped onto a portion of the Warped Tour, a nationwide music-festival where Taylor got to tour with and meet hundreds of bands. It was on this tour where Taylor began to fully step into his groove, become a comfortable unit of the band, and be recognized by fans as an actual member (in spite of his true temporality). Next, they went on a tour with Monty Are I and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. To end everything off, Lorene Drive was included in an MTV2 contest called Dew Circuit Breaker where bands got to compete in contests and perform live on the famous television station. Even though Taylor did not get to compete in the contests, he did get to perform live, where he was shown on nationwide television playing with Lorene Drive. Throughout these tours and travels, Taylor got to live on the road in a van with a pack of smelly dudes (including himself), survive on small amounts of money, and deal with the hardships of not having a home or common necessities. But not only did Taylor pull through these times, he was excited about doing this again in the future. Taylor also learned many things about music during this pivotal period of his life. Because he was playing the instrument of the frontman, Daniel, Taylor had to make sure he was playing perfectly in order to please the former bassist. He also realized that he had spent much of his efforts in song-writing always going off into guitar riffs and making amazing guitar parts. As a bassist, however, he learned about what he calls "roundness": if one instrument, such as the guitar, does things that are too crazy, then that one instrument takes away from the possibility of the drums being able to any special beats, and it especially makes it difficult for the vocalist to do much more than sing very simple melodies with many solid, stationary notes (See: Saosin). If all the pieces to a song keep to the basics and stay simple, then the song will gain an overall roundness which is the key to a song that is simply good. No flashing lights needed. -- It was also during Taylor’s time with Lorene Drive when he first conceived his new musical project, The American Beat. When his musical endeavors with Lorene Drive finally reached their end, and they went home to start writing new material, Taylor began once again focusing on his very own music. As I recall, The American Beat, or TAB, began as a one-man band. Inspired heavily at this time by artists such as Young Love and The Secret Handshake, Taylor wanted to make similar music using the computer program Reason, where people can make music and sounds and beats with just their computer and compile it all to make songs that include synthesized versions of any instrument, realistic or manipulated, imaginable. Taylor wouldn’t keep this project to himself for very long, however. Even though these new musical possibilities enticed him, he couldn’t tear himself away from real instruments. In accordance, he got two friends to join the growing band. One of them was Rob Privitt, previously of The Arson, but his involvement at this time wouldn’t last very long. He was called to help Taylor figure out guitar parts and vocal parts, I would assume, but Rob soon left on completely friendly terms to pursue other things. The other friend was Marcus Alexander Ford. Marcus and Taylor have been best friends since the late 1990's, and Marcus has been playing the drums for just as long as Taylor has been playing the guitar. They learned together, played many cover songs together, and had fun together. But ever since that musical seed was sown within the two, Taylor and Marcus have shared a musical bond that would make them the perfect pair to be in a group together. (Note: Up until this point, most of the information in this essay can be seen in the documentary entitled "The Musical Journey of TayNelTre" which can be seen on YouTube.) Struggles and obstacles, however, kept the duo from being in a full-fledged band together until now, which was around the time 2006 turned into 2007. When they first started playing together, the duo played in sort-of-bands, doing things such as learning songs to play at Marcus’ sister’s birthday party. How much of their own material they actually wrote remains undetermined, but that’s all fine and dandy because they were just learning. Taylor actually went to a guitar teacher, but that didn’t last very long at all. The teacher tried to teach Taylor a bunch of Beatles songs, and that wasn’t what Taylor wished to learn. Marcus, on the other hand, actually went on to become a percussionist for his school’s band, and would remain doing so all throughout high school. This presented the main problem for the two, as drumline took up an exceedingly large portion of Marcus’ time, making him a hard person to work with. He was lucky though, because it is hard for many drumline-trained percussionists to become good at playing the drums in a rock style simply because there are so many differences that diverge the two uses of the same instrument. Marcus though had the core basis of rock drums in him, so he has been able to become good at both, even though Taylor had to help Marcus direct his playing back into the rock direction. And once the time for The American Beat came, all factors lined up perfectly. Both were out of high school, not constricted to any other bands, had free schedules, and they both had seven years of musicianship behind them. Also, Taylor was able to get a practice space in a church just down the street from where they both lived. Everything was lining up, and the song-writing commenced. -- Taylor and Marcus worked on many ideas together, jammed ideas together, and figured out the ideas Taylor had worked on by himself. Very soon, they were already prepared to go record their first finished songs. Who did they record with? None other than Matt Lucas, the former guitarist of Terminal and a fledgling producer. TAB went into the studio with three songs, "Jones," "The Run Around," and "Too Long." They would leave the studio with two. "Jones" is a rocking song that has a very distinct verse, pre-chorus, and chorus, and remains to be one of Taylor’s favorites. The lyrics concern leaving a girl who is basically a romantic con-artist. It’s title came from the fact that, earlier in the song’s writing stages, Taylor and Marcus thought the song was sounding similar to the Counting Crows song "Mr. Jones," and every band needs a Jones! "The Run Around" was a grooving song whose first portion of playtime consisted of just drums and vocals. Lyrically, it was about a girl who always got the boys to come back to her. The song has, as of mid-2008, been removed from the band’s regular arsenal. "Too Long" was never finished because it simply didn’t know where to go. This was the first song that fully realized Taylor’s initial ideas for the band’s sound; almost the entire song was constructed on Reason, with piano, synthesizers, cowbells, etc. But Taylor had trouble finishing vocals for the song and soon got rid of it. Taylor later realized that this style was something that shouldn’t be followed anyway: "Jones" and "The Run Around" were great songs for the band, and they weren’t such because they were filled with toys and bells and whistles. There was just the drums, one electric guitar, and vocals. They were about as simple as a song can be. And yet they became gems that even adults could enjoy because of that simplicity which put a spotlight on the catchy, smart, well-harmonized vocals. So from this point onward, TAB made the wise decision to be a basic rock band with only real instruments. -- Now a new problem arose. Taylor and Marcus had these songs recorded, but that’s all they had. Recordings. They needed to start performing. It was an easy decision for them to make when they decided they needed a third member, because Taylor knew he wouldn’t want to play guitar and sing live (and besides, he wanted to dance!). But the hard decision was, Who? Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s where I came in. I, Chase Alexander Tremaine, am the younger brother of Taylor by 5 years. Ironically, I started playing guitar at the same age Taylor did, so he has a five year lead on me. Before being musically involved with Taylor, I was taught to play guitar by a teacher for half a year after I had spent a few years giving up in my attempts to play the piano, drums, and left-handed bass guitar. After my teacher had to stop giving lessons in early 2006, I began teaching myself, with my brother being my mentor and teaching me good warm-ups and fun guitar riffs to challenge me from bands such as The Receiving End of Sirens and Thrice. Within my first year of playing guitar, I made the foolish decision as do many kids to jump straight into playing in a band, as if that is the only thing you can do once you start playing an instrument. This band went through multiple name and member changes, and musically it went from Christian to post-hardcore to acoustic rock to what I can only assume was electro-acoustic. By the end of this journey, I too was using Reason to make electronic fills to my music, and I was playing and writing by myself. The date was April 2007, and that was when Taylor picked me up. Even though I made music with an overall poor, or at least immature, quality, Taylor could see that I had spirit and had skills that grew faster than the average guitarist (for at the time I had only been playing the guitar for a year and a half). What many people may not know, however, is that my placement in the band was originally a completely temporary one. My purpose in the band was this: I would learn Taylor’s guitar parts so he could focus on writing and mastering the vocals, and I would hold the spot until a permanent guitarist was found. I was just the kid who was good enough and convenient enough to take the spot, and Taylor was already using some of my equipment (a Fender DeVille amplifier) for the band practices. On the other hand, I was still an inexperienced musician, especially by Taylor’s standards, and I (being 15 years old and at the end of my ninth grade year of school) still had three more years of high school ahead of me. But I had a strong hope within me that I would eventually be able to stay in the band with my great brother and Marcus, who is a good friend of mine along with the rest of his family. -- So the summer took off as I learned TAB’s five songs, and Taylor and Marcus mastered their respective parts to each. This summer was very hard on me because Taylor pushed me to play the songs just as expertly as he did, and sometimes I had no push within me to do so because I was just a temp. But what kept me going was not only a love for the band members but also a love for their music: I had already fallen into a spiral of deep admiration and infatuation toward the recordings of "Jones" and "The Run Around," but we also had three other songs we were working on: "No Love" was one of our heaviest songs, with a stellar guitar hook in the verses, driving guitars throughout, and a rap in the bridge. It talked about how people who don’t have passions don’t know how to have love anywhere in their life. It originally was directed toward a girl but has since been changed to have universal significance. "When You’re Not Here" was a comfortable, soaring, sweet-and-simple love song with fun melodies and harmonies that made it an earlier favorite to those who heard it. "Traintracks" was the fifth song of our set, with a grooving swing-time beat, a folk-ish verse guitar part, and an ending breakdown that made sure listeners knew they were listening to a rock band. Even though this song was a favorite of both mine and Marcus’, Taylor never felt very fulfilled with the song. He never even finished the lyrics for it. But we had our songs finished to the point where we were ready to play them, and our chance came in late July when we got to play our first show. Set at the Door in Dallas, we were the opening act for The Working Title, Days Away (if I remember correctly), and, most importantly, Goodbye Tomorrow. (At the time, Goodbye Tomorrow was one of my favorite bands. They have since changed their name to Alive in Wild Paint. But guess who their frontman is? None other than the ex-singer of Terminal, Travis Bryant.) The only things I really remember about this show are that it was a huge amount of fun, we had friends from up to 90 miles away coming out to see us, and Taylor danced the whole show through. -- This was the beginning of the period where we would play at least a show a month, and sometimes we would play a show a week. Due to Taylor’s feelings toward the song, "Traintracks" was immediately removed from the set, and it was replaced by a brand new song called "Moonlight," a track that could easily be danced to and had a rap that, as the highlight of the song, upstaged the rap from "No Love." I actually helped write this song, so even though I told Taylor that they could keep "Moonlight" once they found the new member to replace me, this song helped consolidate my standing as an actual member, a status that would be recognized more and more in the months to come. It would be these five songs that we drifted on for the next year. Our only truly notable show that came afterwards was a little festival in Plano, TX featuring My American Heart, Jonezetta, TheSecretHandshake, and The Higher. The show was almost a success, as we promoted it until our hearts gave out. But the band that played before us had technical troubles and ended up playing for twice of what their time slot allotted them, and so we were pushed back considerably. When the time came for us to play, there were a few hundred people in the room watching us. Yet because we had lost so much time, we only got to play one song before the extremely popular hardcore band on the main stage, Oh, Sleeper, began playing. Nearly everyone flooded out of the room to go watch them. Most other shows we played were not nearly as big as that. We played some shows as a full band, some as acoustic shows, with Marcus on a stripped down drumset. Sometimes Taylor would play guitar, sometimes just I would. Our friend Jake Abueg sometimes joined us as an extra vocalist. We loved playing shows and loved having variety, even though we didn’t have variety in our song choices. -- Struggles started rushing toward us once 2008 came. When we lost the practice space at the church, we started moving from space to space, including an office building thirty minutes away from us and periods in the garages of all three of our houses. Even though this 2007-2008 period brought us two new recordings, those of "No Love" and "When You’re Not Here," there were other recordings that never came to fruition. The people we recorded with were called Impact Productions. Even though they were fun to work with, multiple factors made the recordings take forever, and we weren’t exactly proud of how the way "No Love" turned out. We tried re-recording "Jones" and "The Run Around" with Impact, but our ambitions for the songs swallowed any chance of finishing them, as were adding new introductions, more guitar parts, guitar solos, new harmonies, and more. When our old friend Rob Privitt became involved with Impact Productions, Impact started actually producing shows, where they would find venues, hire bands to perform and the technicians to make the bands able to perform, promote the shows to fans, and then run the shows once they arrived. Our lives became busy as we not only started playing at these Impact shows, but also began working for them as well. Taylor was the sound man for some shows, I would help with the busy tasks of some shows, and Marcus had a long-standing position as a show producer and promoter. As Rob became a large part of our lives once again, we also had him join us as an honorary member to sing harmonies to our songs. You see, Taylor had many harmonies in the recorded versions of songs, but Marcus and I were unable to perform those live. Rob and Taylor already had vocal chemistry due to their time playing together in The Arson, so he was a wise choice. He would come with us to shows and come on-stage for one or more songs and sing the harmonies to them. His appearance in our band soon left as he became too engulfed in working with Impact. We also tried at one point to record "Moonlight," but it was never finished. We were going to record it with just guitars and vocals and then give this recording to Luis Dubuc of TheSecretHandshake for him to remix, as he had generously offered to us. We recorded with our friend Andy Gomoll from local band Swamp Things, who knew what he was doing in the recording room but was simple enough an engineer for such a simple mission. This was a good chance for me, because this was my first chance to record guitars on a song myself. Taylor, however, began to feel very detached from the song in the recording process, unsure of where the song was going or what exactly he should be doing vocally. We ended up giving up on this recording and moving on. -- A blessing came to us unexpectedly in Spring of 2008, when Taylor took a two-month-leave from his job upon the offer of Luis Dubuc asking Taylor to go on tour with him to play drums for TheSecretHandshake. Taylor began preparing for this task, but was soon told that the offer was cancelled. Although a little sullen, us boys in The American Beat decided to take the opportunity to kick up to speed and work on new music. On one magical day, Taylor and I got together and pumped out the music for four new songs and the lyrics for two of those four. One of the most prolific moments in our history, the two songs that we finished lyrics for were soon played at shows and at least one of the other two songs shall reappear soon. The two songs we finished, "Candyworld" and "Convictions," showed a huge step in the right direction for us. "Convictions," on a surface level, was a big step for us because I began singing live at shows in this song, showing that The American Beat could have a future of actually holding up themselves vocally without the help of friends. It also included my help in the song-writing process and a much different take than usual on the drums. Lyrically, it was a big change because it wasn’t about girls, as were all the previous songs at this point. It was with this song when Taylor’s lyrics began to stop worrying just about girls and more about relationships in general, with everyone and everything. "Candyworld" is a rocking song that takes "No Loves"’s place as our most energizing song. Seamlessly melding together guitar parts from rock, R&B, pop, and Spanish acoustic music, the song has an all-around unique feel to it and is one of our favorites to play. The song bashes our culture’s ways in the story of a character walking through a confusing, confused world with lyrics as punchy as the powerful drums and guitars are once combined. Another song soon appeared called "All the Same," which takes the slight Spanish feel of "Candyworld" and spreads it throughout the whole song. At first, the song seemed like it might be a weaker addition to the band’s catalog, but then Taylor finished writing the vocals and harmonies on the song, revealing its strengths. The song would later become one of the band’s best songs as Taylor had the revelation that the song needed lead guitars: Taylor began working diligently on writing guitar solos for the song, which he wouldn’t finish until early 2009. "All the Same" seemed like just a typical break-up song, but it in fact is a song that delves into how a girl acts in new relationships after a big break-up. -- Now that the band had more and better songs to play, things were looking up for The American Beat in the second half of 2008. I was starting my eleventh grade year in high school after spending nearly the entire summer playing with the band, working on the new songs, and becoming a stronger and more cohesive member. This next onslaught of months brought multiple good shows. For a period, we were playing shows weekly, up until we played one of our best shows ever, a birthday party. To help a friend raise money to make a film, we were auctioned off and purchased by a group of women to play at their party. In preparation for this party, we not only practiced more than ever, but we learned nearly ten cover songs, from Bon Jovi to Keith Urban to U2. We also prepared a brand new song entitled "Walk in Love," which was in fact a revisited version of the old song "Traintracks" which we had dumped upon Taylor’s demand. Being a fan of the song, I insisted it be brought back, and Taylor quickly wrote amazing new lyrics for it (about the world’s current misconception of love) as I simultaneously wrote a bridge and Marcus rewrote the ending. We prepared ourselves in order to be able to play an hour-long set, with all three of us having parts to sing. When the show came in late September, we were ecstatic, in spite of the fact that we were learning some more cover songs (such as the surprisingly complex "Jessie’s Girl," which I take pride in having figured out how to play) last minute. But the show was a complete success and a huge bundle of fun. Not only did we prove that we could play for a long period of time, but we also proved that we had the ability to convincingly perform other people’s music. We were happy. We kept playing shows, such as two special shows in November: one with our old friends Jonezetta and Meg & Dia, and the other show with local band DRANE at their reunion show. And as these shows went great, they also turned out to be our last shows... for now. -- As of November 2008, The American Beat decided to take a complete hiatus from performing live. Not only have we done that, but we all stopped working with Impact Productions, in order to free up our time and take ourselves out of the local music scene and any possible frustrations in the musical world. Our focus needed to be on our music. And we have spent all of 2009 holding that focus steady. Now a completely firm unit who have proved themselves to audiences, The American Beat needed to prove their strengths to each other. Taylor needed to start being more prolific in his song-writing, for he wrote new ideas nearly every day but also barely saw ideas through to the point of them being complete songs. Marcus needed to focus on his singing and work towards writing drums parts that are perfect for songs, matching the drums, vocals, and overall feel. I had the most work ahead of me, being horrible at singing harmonies and needing to tone not only my vocal qualities but also my song-writing abilities. But together we all have strengths to help each other. Marcus is a very talented pep-talker, always knowing wise things to say and the right times to say them. He and Taylor, in an opposing fashion, are also a constant comedic relief, always prepared to lighten spirits when situations get heavy. Taylor is an extremely talented and well-trained vocalist, ready to train both Marcus and myself. He can also help both myself with my guitar-playing and Marcus with his drumming whenever we are lacking. He is also a simple thinker in terms of our musical endeavors, which brings a grounded opinion to the table. He never hopes for more than what we can achieve and he has realistic dreams, but he never lets anyone slip up or lose sight of the band’s intentions. I myself am a very critical person. Whenever anything goes wrong, I shall make sure it is noticed. But I am also critical in the music-critic sort of way. In other words, I understand a good deal about what makes music good and bad, and I am very familiar with bad habits and cliches in the musical world, which helps the band from ever doing them ourselves. I also edit Taylor’s lyrics, making sure every line makes perfect sense and adds meaning to the song. Lastly, I am as persistent as a rock falling down a cliff, so I help make sure Marcus does what he needs to do in order to improve, and I make sure Taylor stays on top of writing new ideas and working on songs. (Oh, I also make for great material in all of Marcus and Taylor’s jokes.) -- The three of us, as we can now see, were made to be in a group together, and our lives have all led up to us being at this point. We have spent 2009 preparing for the future. We are turning ourselves into singing machines, putting ourselves through tough vocal exercises in order to be able to sing all of our songs and harmonies at future performances. (The Backstreet Boys are our paragon.) We have also been writing a full record, which we have already started recording with, guess who!?, Matt Lucas. (Isn’t funny how everything goes full circle? We are back in the studio with the man who recorded our first demos, except he has now become a master of the craft, with a smoothness and a determination I have never before seen. We are lucky to be working with him once again.) On the record will be only songs post-"Moonlight." Taylor has decided to challenge himself to write all brand new material, which we are working on deftly and brilliantly. We have also gone through a self-examination and an identity change. The American Beat is gone. We are, as shall be explained in a future essay, Nelson and the Alexanders. You have just read our history. Now prepare for our future.