Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas this young singer/songwriter knew that music was to be his outlet in life. "I remember standing in front of the mirror in my bed room and performing for myself. I used to take pretty much any object, whether it was a pillow or a shoebox, anything that was laying around and use it as my guitar strumming the rhythm while I sang along. I'd get really embarrassed when one of my parents would walk in and wonder what the hell I was doing." John was exposed to a vast array of music throughout his childhood due to his parents "There was everything from James Taylor and Jim Croce to Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Nat King Cole, The Beatles and the Eagles in retrospect I guess they had a pretty eclectic taste of music." As all children do, John would regularly venture outside with the other neighborhood boys many of whom were much older. "That's the first time I ever remember hearing curse words in music" John says "Most of the kids were listening to NWA and people like Too Short, and then a few years later it was Dr. Dre and the whole gangster rap thing. I guess thought that was cool at the time" John admits His taste for Pop music would fade with each passing trend and while in high school he began thinking of a future as a writer. "I don't think I ever received an "A" for anything I have ever written. I had a hard time staying on task through the entire paper. I would just skip around from one point to the next. I've always said that I would been a novelist if it wasn't for my A.D.D". It was during this time that John starting playing the guitar. He had saved up enough money from his first summer job to finally get the guitar he had his eye on. By then, John was immersed in the constant challenge of teaching himself to play guitar. "I would just listen to music and try and do whatever they did, whether it sounded good or not." John spent hours on end listening to the guitar players whose styles met his aspirations; people like Slash, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, John Frusciante, and Bradley Knowles of Sublime. "I used to learn every Sublime song I would come across. To me he was like an Urban blues-man with a dash of Southern-California surfer and that got me to thinking, 'Hey I could do this too.'" The blues and its three chord structure gave John the chance to combine his two passions in life: playing music and writing. "It seem to fit right away. Of course, the songs sucked, but it kept getting easier and easier and the songs started to get better and better." After graduating high school, John decided to try his hand at a formal music education though never receiving any prior teaching before, other than middle school choir, where, during his sixth grade year he was asked not enroll back in the program. "It wasn't because I couldn't sing, it was because I wouldn't shut up and behave". When asked whether that took any of the wind out of his sails John replied in typical fashion "Nah, I just took Art instead. It wasn't really a big deal. They let me back in the year after that and I was chosen by our choir teacher to represent our school at the All Region competition so I kind of redeemed myself." While in college, John slowly figured out that though he loved music his ideas and those of classical musicians didn't mesh very well. After dropping out of school following his freshman year, he decided that he would pursue music on his terms. "I tried writing music in every genre I had ever had any exposure to trying to find my voice and my own style." After many failed attempts at trying to form a band, John decided to record a couple songs for a songwriting demo using money that his girlfriend and parents had "loaned" him to pursue his dream. " I took that $120 or whatever it was, and found a little studio (RockHouse Studio) in his home town and set up a couple of sessions. At the time I was listening to a lot of the top singer/songwriters from around Texas, mainly Robert Earl Keen Jr., Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Earle... people like that. I was really enamored with Robert Earl Keen and Steve Earle. I liked the way they chose to approach what some would call country music, especially Steve Earle. The first time, I heard one of his albums, the "Transcendental Blues" album. Then I went back from there and listened to his earlier works and really began to identify with him. I wanted to do the same kind of thing with American roots music that I thought Bradley Knowles and Jimi Hendrix did to the blues; sort of like "Byrd" and Miles' contributions to jazz years earlier. That sounds pretentious but that is my goal I guess." While recording his first two tracks on what would soon become his "Head First" album, John met and be-friended studio owner and songwriter/producer Earl Musick and fellow musician and songwriter Mark Merritt who would both co-produce John's debut album. In the studio, John, Earl and Mark would build a mutual friendship and collaborative effort that still continues to this day. "It was so great to finally be around other musicians that approached songwriting similar to the way that I did and took it is as serious as I did and it was a great learning experience to be in that kind of an atmosphere with that kind of talent at such a young age." When asked about his first album, John summarizes with: "To be able to honestly say that you play Americana music means that you have to grow along with the American experience. To me, Americana is not just about the down-home, often nostalgic feel that the music is sometimes stereo-typed as. To me, it is about telling the American story, both good and bad and in order to do that you have listen and see how the story will unfold, and there's a different story every hour of every day so who knows how it will turn out. Americana is about addressing the issues of every American from the immigrant to the elderly and from rural landscape to the inner-city. The stories that some people choose to shy away from are themselves the stanzas of the American experience, and if we fail to tell them, then we fail to grow as a society, because lets face it, we all learn from our mistakes. So what we wanted to do with "Head First" was to find a good starting point. Strip the production down the bare minimum, mainly acoustic instruments, and just tell the stories. Everything that needs to be there is there, but nothing else. That way I have plenty room to expand as an artist along with the evolution of my music and our budding society."