Low Life

Hello,

As many of you who will read this know, I moved from the Boston area to Raleigh, North Carolina to join a band called The Design in January 2012. This band allowed me to accomplish one of my life goals at age 23, which was to need to do nothing else but play music to make a living. I had to do nothing other than wake up every day, play music, and go to sleep that night. It was the single greatest accomplishment I had ever achieved. However, on Sunday, October 28th, that band played it’s final show. The members of the band, including myself, decided that it was time to break up the band and move on. Musicians who read this may say “What were you thinking? You had it made! You were able to play music, pay all your bills, and not work a day job! How could you give that up?” The answers to those questions are many and varied. And someday I may expound upon those. But that’s not what I’m writing about today.

Today I write to say “Thank you”.

Since moving to Raleigh, I have not been able to meet many people. I am usually out of town for about half the week, and the part of the week I am in town usually consists of me recovering from the part that I am gone. Despite this fact, there have been several people who have invited me into their homes and their lives as a friend, and I cannot express enough what that means to me. I think, if you are reading this, you know who you are. And I need to thank you first and foremost for what you have done for me, even if you don’t think it was any great thing. Socializing has never been easy for me, and the fact that you make it easier for me speaks wonders about your personality and character, so thank you for being amazing.

The second group of people I must thank are the fellow musicians who have led me to this point. Some of you have played with me, and some of you have guided me, and some of you have taught me directly, but no matter what, you have helped to shape me as a musician, and there is no end to the debt that I owe you. I speak largely of the people I have played in bands with before (In no particular order: TNAR, The Bill Dwyer Band, Gumbo Diablo, Matt Koelsch and the Allies, The Design, insert musical group I played with here), but also of those who I imitated by attempting to take their place in said bands. I have always chosen to play with bands where I had massive shoes to fill, so that I could learn from the musicians who came before me. I consider myself very lucky in that all of the bands that I joined never realized that I have never been as good as the bassist they had before I joined. I became better because of those who came before me. I thank you for teaching me something new, even if you never realized it.

And finally, I need to thank one person in particular. For the record, I choose this medium because I could never work up the courage to say this in person, and this means too much to me to not say. I need to thank Kat. Kat (the lead singer of The Design) has done a wonderful job setting up an environment for me to enter into the full-time, professional realm. She has spent seven years of her life creating this musical idea. She has devoted the entirety of her professional history to building something that can only be described as miraculous. She built this juggernaut of ideas, and she invited me in. She actively asked me to be a part of it. This is the single most incredible thing that has ever happened to me. Kat has a grand vision that I could only hope to dream of creating, and she has taught me so much. I understand music very well, but I never really understood performance until she showed me what I was doing wrong. The way I think about performing and playing music has completely changed, and I owe it to her. So thank you Kat, for bringing me into this wonderful vision that you have, and making me a better musician for it.

So for those of you who were hoping/fearing I would be moving back to Mass, hope/fear not. I have found something here that I believe in, and I will see it through to the end, no matter what that end may be. And to anyone at all who contributed to me getting here: Thank You.

-KDL Out.