We just got some promo pics done for the Dreadfuls deal.....  I look old.  I also look a little worn.  I feel even worse.  Of course, I am writing this from Pennsylvania where there is about 6 inches of snow, it is presently raining and it is 20 to 40 (!) degrees colder than I am used to at my North Carolina home.  COULD be that......  Hoping to have some new pics and a the new video up here soon.  If you want to jump the gun, search the PennydreadfulsViolent Red on youtube......  Thanks for stopping by the site!  Feel free to email me how young I look!

We are playing the Gin Mill in Charlotte this Sat. at 10pm.  Really looking forward to it, great place and great people.  Yes, it's a Pennydreadfuls show, me and drummer Ron!  So it will rock, don't worry.  I know some of you are wondering if I'm going to play that acoustic, slow, meaningful stuff......  No.  We are just playing rock and roll that night.  See you there?

I hope this has been a great year for everyone, when I look back on what this year held, I see ups and downs, a lot of change and growth and some really great memories.  Christmas this year is very special because it is the first year that my daughter, Scarlet, is really into it.  It brings back the excitement again.  I wish I had some really big news to write about but I really don't.  I hope that this coming year brings with it some good shows and great songs, I hope I get to see old friends and make many new ones.  I hope everyone that reads this has a truly merry Christmas!  Have a great New Year!!!!

Here is the most recent email I sent to the email list, just wanted to put it on here for those of you that don't receive the email updates:


Hello everyone,

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and send my wishes for a happy New Year. The last few years have been crazy for me and my family, moving, new jobs, new venues, raising a beautiful daughter and trying to make sense of it all. Some of you know my history but many maybe don't, so I thought I'd give a little background on where I, or maybe better, we, have been.

I had a band called Grantham Road in Pennsylvania that started it all. We began as a three piece band and then added a keyboard played and then two of the original members left and we replaced just the bass to bring it back to a three piece. This line up, drummer Steve Geyer and bassist Jason Shaffer, was what took us to the point of playing three to four nights a week, opening for Hootie and the Blowfish, Saving Jane and having singles played on radio stations across the US. We accomplished a lot in the short time we were together and then it came to an end. I can look back on it all coming to an end in two different ways. One is that it was meant to happen and it allowed me to do all that I have done since, which is really the only way that I can look at it. But a large part of me wonders what it would have been like if we would have pushed through. This past year marked our first show together for years, and it was great to make it happen. So, to Steve and Jason: from the bottom of my heart, Thank You.

After we went our separate ways I was able to continue playing quite a bit as a solo act. My wife and I went to see a band called Over The Rhine in Annapolis, MD and I struck up a conversation with their sound man, David Foreman. David and I hit it off right away and I sent him a few songs and we began the process of recording my first solo album using the live band from Over The Rhine. We all met in New Harmony, IN and recorded the basic tracks, then did the overdubs in Cincinnati, OH. It was a fun process, one that took about a year and we were hoping to debut the album with a run of shows with Over The Rhine. It was hard to keep my regular live shows going while recording so far away so the thought of going on the road with months of shows lined up was very appealing. With only a little more to do on the project, my wife finds out she is pregnant and we have to reevaluate everything. No longer is that idea of touring going to happen like we thought, no longer can we hope that my music will support us, we needed to have some solid things to bring a child into the world, like a house and job.

We decided we wanted to move and sort of start fresh. We were told by a publicist about Asheville, NC and we took a five day trip down and two weeks later, packed up our car and Steve Geyer's truck with our things and moved. We thought that a city that had a great music scene would be perfect for us. In many ways it was, but not in every way. It wasn't so easy to find good paying gigs and the cost of living was higher than we expected. Factor in the fact that my wife was 8 months pregnant and it was stressful to say the least! We ended up finding a small, stone house in a small town 40 minutes north of Asheville called Erwin, TN. Our daughter was born there and in the next two years our lives changed drastically.

I found that I will always write, no matter where I am or what is happening. It seems to be something that is very natural to me, I always have little scraps of paper with lines on them or poems. But as the years went by and I found myself playing live shows less and less, I discovered that I really missed the interaction with a band and an audience. Jumping back into it all is hard and then add into the equation that I was in an area where I didn't know any other players, venues or contacts and it feels like the whole world is against you. I started another recording project with some friends in PA, just to hear some ideas I had. Many of those songs were put on my Marks Of Another Year EP. I worked for a little with a manager in PA that put me in the NASCAR circuit. Finally, my wife is offered a job in New Bern, NC and she is longing for some stability, so we take it. Which involves another move, exploring another area and meeting new people.

I decided that I wanted to test the waters with an EP and when we moved to New Bern I made that happen. I recorded and released Marks Of Another Year and worked with a radio promoter in NY to see if it was even worthwhile trying to really do this music thing again. It has been so long since I have been moving forward, just year after year of playing less and less, that I wanted to see if I was still relevant. That project was picked up by over 50 stations and has done well for the effort that I put into it.

As I move forward in the new year, I can't even start to speculate what is going to happen. I have seen so many people say, well, I'm going to record this album and then book shows and be famous and rich.... But I don't think that is going to happen for me. What I will say is that this coming year, I want to move forward. I want to put out music that I believe in and that I feel will connect with people. I want to put out music that makes us all think and re-look at who we are, what we believe and where we are going.

If you are reading this and can offer me any advise or think that you could help me out, please don't think that I have it all together and that I don't need some. I'm always looking for new ways to put my music and art out there.

Thanks for all of your support and I hope to see you down the road!

Flint

See you down the road!

Flint

I am writing this because I feel I need to explain why I don't participate in certain popular things that it seems most other musicians/bands do.  I am frequently asked these questions:  Why don't you enter so and so contest?  Why don't you guys play that battle of the bands?  Why aren't you trying out for American Idol?  Here is the simple explanation, I keep my art separate from competition.  To me art is not something that can "win".  It is not "better" than someone else's art.  It is different and meant to be different.  I have always thought of art as the expression of myself, the outlet for and of things that I have no other way of getting out.  Art is, to me, the parts of me and the thoughts of mine that you cannot see.  It is often the serious side of me.  It is often the side that is more emotional and more insightful.  Do I feel that art can or should be judged?  Yes, but only by an individual.  Where I see the problem coming in with one person or a panel of people saying 'this is better than this' is that it not taints the opinion of others.  For whatever reason we, as humans, seem to value the opinion of certain people more than our own.  Celebrities, other musicians, friends, the random internet commenter; we will allow ourselves to filter the art as to what they have already judged it as. 

I didn't get into music for the free drinks, women and drugs.  I chose to write and play because it has always been art to me.  It is a place where I can go and explore the interior of my own mind and begin to discover who I am.  I have been able to put on paper thoughts and opinions and stare at them to see if they are really what I believe in. This is the art that I create, and often, it is what creates me.  I am constantly changing and rethinking my ideals and opinions due to the fact that, as I write, I am facing these things head on.  As I work a line or a song over the course of a week or month or maybe a year, I am forcing myself to take that thought to the furthest point.  To see where the end is or where it takes me to. 

This is why I have never played a battle of the bands, this is why you do not see me begging for people to "like" my facebook page, this is why I understand that I will not fit into certain venues because I am not, and I choose not to be, a cover band.  Almost everyday I get emails about entering some kind of contest for my music.  Everyday, those emails are deleted as soon as I read the subject line. 

This world loves competition and numbers.  I think that the reason most people do is because it is so easy to measure that way.  It is easier to measure the number of people that visited my website than to try to measure how much a song affected someone and made them think.  How can we put a measure on how a word choice caused someone to reevaluate their own role in life?  How can we put a measure on a chord voicing that turned someone's melancholy mood into a rebirth of their own spirit?  I would rather choose the path that, to me, has the reward of something deeper than I can number.

Well, good question.  I am sitting at my house in NC writing things that I end up just erasing because I don't feel like finishing the entire thought.  I am working on booking shows, as always.  I am realizing that it is becoming harder and harder to find good venues that want real music.  I am working on new songs, new thoughts, new ways of creating.  I am wondering if anyone listens much anymore.  I am thinking about how difficult it is to keep everything in life balanced. 

The Pennydreadfuls are booking shows, just added a date in Washington, NC.  We have videos almost ready to post and a slew of new things I can't wait to reveal.  We are enjoying the holidays and gearing up for 2012.  I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a great New Year.  Drop me an email, I always enjoy hearing from you.....

Due to unforeseen circumstances we are cancelling the show on Dec. 10 in Zebulon, NC.  Sorry.

I put some more songs in the site wide player here.  They are not new, just ones that I haven't put up for a while due to the EP being released.  One of the things I am struggling with recently is that I am always trying to balance out what I am or what I am percieved as.  The EP "Marks Of Another Year" has a very rock sound to it, as did my Grantham Road album "Parade", but as I am playing solo shows, I realize that I also have a very earthy, folk style, or maybe it's just quieter and slower. 

I wanted to put a few songs that would be relavent as to the Pennydreadfuls shows, which are a whole mixture of things from Grantham Road songs to new material, and that is the tracks "Stranger" and "I Won't Fight".  Both are off "Parade", "I Won't Fight" being probably the most heard song that Grantham Road had.  That song was played on a number of radio stations nationwide and helped put "Parade" at #26 on the Roots Music Chart.  "Stranger" has always been a live favorite, though I continue to feel this recording of it isn't quite as powerful.

"Room Of Cards", " Gone Away" and "Survive" are all songs that I play in a solo acoustic setting.  Each one is, to me, a snapshot of a certain time in my writings.  Each has the elements that I love in a song and they hold their weight with just a vocal and a guitar.  I hope you will take the time to listen to each one and maybe even write me a note giving me your feedback. 

I am working on live shows, not just booking, though that seems to take most of my time, but on coming up with a great shows that people will want to come out to and then leave and say, I want more of that and what friends can I take with me.

Is a live band about big sound systems, lights, a whole crew of roadies and fog and hype? Can a guy take a handful of songs that he wrote from his heart, play them with conviction night after night, have a good, solid, tight sound and keep a crowd interested? And make friends that will support him and his passion for years to come?

I don't really know the answer. I seem to be on this personal quest to find out. Some of you that read this will remember my band Grantham Road. When I look back on the years we spent playing and writing and recording, I see a steady growth of simple songs that people connected with and went from being a 'crowd' to being fans or, best of all, being friends.

I can remember playing with candles as our stage lights, not because it was cool or that we were trying to create an intimate atmosphere, but because it was cheap. We then bought some clip on desk lamps and put colored plastic wrap on them. We eventually used some of the Badlees lighting, I think we had one of those lighting boards for a few shows that I got out of the one flood at K&S Music had. Then it burned out. We eventually settled into just playing well and trying to read the crowd. What songs did they seem to really like? What part of the night did they connect to? Did anyone even hear my wise-cracks about the bartender?

I am rehearsing with a drummer, Ron, here in New Bern, NC to see if we can create something that people will want to hear/see. We are not cool, we are not young. We are dads, husbands, nerds, really. But what I think I found is another person that loves the music enough to say, let's give it a go. I can still remember meeting my friend Steve Geyer, Grantham Road drummer from day one. There isn't Grantham Road without Steve. Steve loved the songs I wrote, believed that they would stand the test of time and was willing to see what happened and not desire instant success. We defined success as "one fan at a time". Hell, often it seemed like "one fan a week". But recently I looked back through a bunch of old photos and realized that we did what we set out to do. We played the clubs and bars that we wanted to on our own terms. Our proudest moments were when we played a club that only had cover bands and they asked us to rebook. I can remember Steve, Jason Shaffer and I jumping in that old Ford Econoline with smiles on our faces, feeling like "we won!" Not really won, I guess, but we did what we set out to do. I think we got off track a time or two, but we learn from those times and are often better off because of it.

Ron and I have a lot of work ahead of us, as do the Grantham Road guys as we get ready to play again too. But I hope one day we will look back on THIS time and be glad we put the effort, faith and passion into it. Guys, I can't wait to play this one out with you and see where we go.

I am asked rather frequently about my influences with music and I usually spout off the musicians and bands that I like in hopes that it will appease whoever is asking and we can move on. It seems very difficult for me to really explain in detail about all the things that have affected me to write and style my music the way that it comes out. Not only that but to state an influence and have the person that asked not be fully aware that this conversation is a snapshot of my life at that exact moment, not something that takes into account the ongoing process, is so restricting and feels very small. We are all made up of the events and occurences that happened before us and to us. So to talk about the influences on my music we would need to start with the time I was raised, my parents, their relationship, my childhood, friends, the rural area I lived, the things that were happening in the world and I heard about or maybe didn't even know were happening and I was sheltered. After thinking about the subject for some time now I am convinced that these kinds of things hold more weight to me sounding like me than sharing that I was into The Mavericks, Green Day, Dwight Yoakum, Tool, The Beach Boys and Stevie Ray Vaughn as a teenager.

I have also become keenly aware that I view myself as a writer, not necessarily a musician, first and then acknowledge the presence of music, melody and rhythm. The books and authors I love and have been exposed to are more dear to me than the cd's and cassettes that I have bought. Even though I fell in love with The Ghost of Tom Joad and Cold Roses and still find myself singing childhood songs of Gemini, my personal life has been more directed by books like Seawolf, The Divine Comedy, The Most Dangerous Game, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Where The Sidewalk Ends, Thus Said Zarathustra, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, Somewhere A Band Is Playing, Care Of The Soul, Letters To A Young Poet,Bridge To Terabithia, The Catcher In The Rye and Shakey. These are what are more telling of what I see myself as, a writer.

And what about the countless friends I have made and lost? The suicides and death, the lives I watched grow up, the people I have helped and been helped by, aren't these more influential than bands like The Offspring and Rich Mullins? I have traveled a good bit and I have seen things that many other people have never, and will never, see. The moments when nature causes one to sit quietly and remember what life is for. I would put it out there that these are the influences I am trying to channel when I sit down to write or begin to sort out melodies. And maybe they sound a lot like Bruce Springsteen not because I am trying to sound like him, but because he was in the same place, channeling the same influences, at one time.