For a year or so I worked very diligently at trying to
get published in Dragon Magazine, but I soon
realized that 12 year olds don't get published in such
a high-standing magazine. So for the next few years, I
submitted to smaller 'zines and now and then would get
published in the town newspaper for the scary stories contests.
I always got second place, mainly because, in small
towns in Northern Maine, it's not so much how good a
person you are that gets you anywhere in life, it's what
you're last name is. My father's family came from
California, so I was the only Milliken in town. There were
dozens of Quints and Hendersons and Putnums, though, so
no matter how great a piece I submitted, a Quint or
a Henderson or a Putnum would win. So it goes.
We would get really bored and listen to Ozzy and Black
Sabbath, and then make up our own songs, which we sang
to the tune of "Good-bye to Romance" and "Hand of Doom".
I think I still have some of the tapes. They're really
lame. But hey, every musician gets his start somewhere.
You're the shit, man. Don't ever change.
It was actually because of Jaison that I met my best
friend, Dan Flanagan, one of the best damned musicians
in the world.
I was 15, and it was my first time in a bar. It started
of with just Jai, this guy Jeff, and me smoking cigarettes
and them drinking beer while I drank Pepsi and the
occasional Cap'n and Coke. Within a few hours, there
were about twelve people collected around the table, and
Jai introduced me to this wierd-lookin guy named Dan.
I didn't think much of him at first, which is not to
say I didn't like him; I just didn't have an opinion of him.
It wasn't until the bar closed and that we all hustled
to the parking lot to burn it out to Naples that I got
my first real impression of Dan.
Dan and I came out of the bar at the same time, and after a
few steps, he starts jumping around and waving his
arms around, screaming,"Man, we should take
the whole fuckin human race and fill their intestines
with disease and rats and death until they just explode
out of their guts in big festering gobs!"
My reaction went something like this:
Dan and I have been best friends ever since.
A few months later, Dan and I were working together,
mixing his guitar talent with my poetic abilities. We
never actually recorded anything, but we had a few
really cool songs half-written. Unfortunately, I had
school to deal with, and he had work, so we hardly ever
got time to work together.
It was during a jam session/severe beer buzz that
Dan inspired me to create what would later become
TORTURED.
We had been sitting at the table at his sister's house/
studio, drinking Labatt's while I mulled over some of
my lyrics and he came up with creepy riffs on his acoustic
twelve-string. We'd been struggling along with a song
which I had created in my head, but had no means of
conveying to my partner in crime.
It was then, as I sat there and agonized on how to
express the sound-image I had that Dan said those fateful
words:
It wasn't until sometime later that those words took
a serious meaning to me.
Later that same summer, two very important things happened
which also led to the creation of TORTURED.
I composed my first songs on that cheesy laptop, using the
worst MIDI drivers possible. Two made it to the original version
of CONVOLUTIONS: "clattering" (originally titled
"tribal") and "pulse" (later deleted for
the remastered version). In any case, this laptop, no matter
how crappie or obsolete, allowed me to create the first
TORTURED tracks, even if, at the time, I had no idea that
that's what they would later become.
Getting accepted to the MSSM was very important for me,
because I was treated like shit by almost every teacher
and administrator. The students were mostly drug-addicts
and preppy-jocks, and I couldn't stand going to school
in a place filled with discrimination and ineptitude.
So, after being mistreated and blamed for breaking
rules I couldn't possibly break, I applied to the MSSM
and was accepted.
It was at the MSSM that I met Bexx, the love of my life,
and also bought my first half-decent computer. The best
thing about it was that it had a real sound card equipped
with actual sound drivers.
I also became friends with some of the coolest motherfuckers
on the planet, as well as some of the smartest. Without
some of these integrating fools, TORTURED would never
have existed.
Marcel (Marcelo Rico) was someone I had known from my sending school.
He's this French kid who looks like he's Puerto Rican
and who thinks he's a pimp. He previewed almost all
of my early works and gave me his feedback.
Nemo (Neamybitch) was his roommate. He's a tall hick,
but we love him anyway. He had a sub woofer, which
really made songs like "aeternus (pathetic)" and
"intro (scabbulous dermis>" sound great.
Dave (Chipmunk) is this skinny long-haired deviant, much
like my myself in appearance and attitude, although I
must admit, I do exceed him in tact. He, too, was
one of my critics. Until last month, the best response
to a song from him was,"That's actually pretty cool."
Heather was also a big influence in my music. She
made my crapulent English class bearable, and since she
lived directly underneath me in the dorms, she was able
to tell if the rhythm of the bass drum was any good.
The rest is pretty much history. My aunt Mary supported
the first two albums greatly, and gave me as much feedback
as she could, considering she was a couple states away.
I wrote the bulk of Convolutions from January of
1999 to that May. The first song to officially bear
the name TORTURED was "mi amore", on a single-play
EP I made for Bexx. It was our two-month anniversary, and
I wrote it for her to show her how much she has influenced
my life. The first song that was actually written after
TORTURED was conceived was "aeternus (pathetic)".
Actually, Aeternus was the original name of the project,
but I discovered another band by that name, so I changed
it to TORTURED (just as Sevendust changed their name from
Crawlspace after discovering another band with that name).
H8-RED.n.99 was written from May until October of
'99. The first five songs were written at my house in
East Hodgdon, Maine, during summer break. The last 4
were written in my dorm-room at the MSSM. "Echoes from
the Lunatics Wall" took almost a month to write,
many because I wanted to do the works of Pink Floyd justice
while still keeping true to TORTURED's sound. I think
I pulled it off quite nicely.
Currently, I'm working on the newest album (never take
a break). Two songs have been completely written, and
vocals are soon to be recorded and dubbed over some
of the tracks. This one will be a while in the making,
so don't hold your breath.
"My long crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, and bold defiance took it's place . . . "
--Fredrick Douglass
S'long. I'll add more as it slips from the mists of the
future to the agonizing tedium of the present, to the
featured movie of the week or the past.
(1) I bought a laptop computer and, within a week,
downloaded Anvil Studio ,
a MIDI editing program.
(2) I got accepted to The Maine School of Science and Mathematics,
a high school which teaches mostly college-level courses to
high school students aren't being challenged at their home schools.
