“The van had broken down and at that point I knew, that was the last straw, this band has to end,” Mr. Smith said

We often don’t think about it but most teachers had lives before they came here and gave tardy slips, told us to pull up our pants, and to get a haircut, but this one story gives a little more info into the life of a teacher out of school. Mr. Smith’s band became well known locally and even got a record deal, but the band started to fall from its glory when it began touring.

This is the story of Mr. Smith’s past, one of our photography teachers.

“I taught myself how to play guitar around the age of 14 or 15. Really my dad knew how to play a guitar so there were always instruments in the house. I was self taught and it took 8 hours of practice everyday non-stop until I began to get really good at it,” Mr. Smith said.

With Mr. Smith’s non-stop practicing, it was only a matter of time before it took off.

“There was this kid in my neighborhood named Jeff and he played the drums.

We then started the band along with a guitar player named Stefan and bassist named James. A friend of ours from Washington introduced us to some bands and after listening to them our thought of how to make music was changed forever,” Mr. Smith said.

After the influence of the new music, Mr. Smith would later put his influence into use.

“We practiced a lot and eventually became really good. We decided to forget about about having a singer and became an instrumental band,”

With the band getting bigger and better they soon wanted to go somewhere with their project and soon finally tried to get themselves onto a record label.

“We were in college at this point and a friend of ours, Michael, was taking a Recording Engineering class and needed to record for a project. We needed to record and do it on the cheap so free was even better. We were dedicated and put some money into it, making 1,000 copies and sent a few to Record companies. On Easter morning I woke up early and had a bunch of messages from Stefan saying he was talking all night to the guy who ran a label that we wanted. And he wanted to sign us immediately. It was the dream come true scenario,” Mr. Smith said.

While the constant touring clashed with Mr. Smith’s desire to graduate Art School, they began to wonder how big the band could get.

“The peak of the band, in my opinion, was when writing a song for a compilation album for The Record label. This was the strongest song we had ever written and we began to daydream about what our next record would be like,” Mr. Smith said.

“As we began thinking about this record we were in the middle of a 3 month tour. This tour was very difficult for many reasons and it was wearing us down. One night after a show the van broke down. We were stranded in a parking lot at 2 in the morning. All the arguments we had been having about tour commitments in our future began to make it painfully obvious I would have to quit school, and I was not interested in quitting school. That and a few other things led to our demise. Those guys went on to tour and make music for a while, but eventually gave it up,” Mr. Smith said.

While Stefan, James, and Jeff parted ways, you can find Mr. Smith in his photography class teaching to the next generation of photographers, and maybe even musicians.