Personal history- This boy's been playing guitar since '97/98, taught by The Great Buster Nicholson of the Christian Rock band 99+1. His father, Tom, works at Fed Ex. His mother, Malia, is an ordained minister and the worship leader at The Vineyard Harvest Church of Leesburg. Russ plays bass on the worship team. Malia is also the lead singer of 99+1. Russ has been in a variety of different bands and his tastes of music have varied much, but not entirely through the years. In his early days, his first musical loves were The Beach Boys and other oldies songs. He loved "The Wipeout"(his favorite song) and other beachy/surfer tunes. He found that instrumental songs became his favorites- Wipeout, Tequila, Green Onions, Rock and Roll Pt. 2, Miserlou, etc. Yes indeed, his favorite style was surfer beach from the beginning.
In about 6th grade or so, after hating soccer practices and such truck, his parents told him he needed to pick a hobby. He didn't want to, he was nervous to, but soon it came to be to fulfill his destiny (that rhymes). His parents suggested learning guitar. No he didn't want to, but his mother told him that she would take lessons, too, and maybe his step father, too. So that sounded good, until he was already signed up and the mother chickened out or something. So from here on it was solo...that is until the 150th day of his year!!! The guitar teacher was a local from their church(Shanondale Springs Chapel) named Buster Nicholson who played guitar in the worship band and in a christian rock band called "Soul Angler". So Russ didn't like the guitar, couldn't get the hang of it, hated it, until all of the sudden... he got it. He didn't really like it, it wasn't fun for him, but now he could actually read music and play it. His father lent him (forever) an old Arbor, red guitar that he himself got for free a long while ago. He also gave him an amp (Crate). So there was no acoustic in the early days. Russ began trying to explore his creative juices and create some music. His first cool riff was a kind of surfer/fly/awesome sound which later (with the help of band mate Cyclone) became the Funky Mushrooms' song of "Roller Coaster". Trying to play the Dc Talk- Jesus Freak album intro he instead played a simpler song, but to this day one his best riffs ever. He played it much and it grew to a whole song. He ashamedly wrote down his riffs in a little colorful "Lisa Frank" notepad with a Golden Retriever on the cover in an ancient tablature. He also wrote an awesome fly/acoustic/light/ song that he later gave to a friend by mail (Faith). One of the first songs that he learned how to play was the verse in "dive" by dc talk and then he figured out how to play what he now knows is called "Miserlou", which appeared on a Mountain Dew Commercial and influenced him thereafter to drink mountain dew, and do the dew. (a commercial that actually worked).
Then from the forests of Shanondale, Russ moved to the busy Suburbs of Leesburg in Loudoun County in summer of '99- now the fastest growing county in the entire United States of America!!! The guitar classes continued in his new house in Exeter. Eventually in 2000 the classes discontinued and the guitar teacher entrusted Russ to finish the last section of the book(he tried, but...didn't finish), there were some good tunes in that book such as "Turkey in the Straw"- which Russ got to play fast and liked playing. He also like some October song; that would be a good cover song. So then he'd play his guitar whenever. Then, in fall of 2001 or so... he got a thought in his head, well if I play guitar I'll probably/might as well play in a church band or maybe a band sometime in my life. So he decided he might as well make up a riff just in case so that he could contribute to the band. Either that night or later, he stumbled across a riff so profound and powerful that it still today is considered his best riff ever. It was through God that he says it came to be, and so he set it apart to honor God. When he played it with his electric guitar over and over again, each time was just as pleasant as the last, and it brought some undescribable image into his head: something dealing with the end of the world, the rapture, the tribulation. He later referred to it as "Acts" and finally, as it is today, "resurrections" concerning the promised resurrection from the dead of Christians and mankind to be judged.
This prompted him to play the guitar more often and it became fun once he could play songs better, more easily, and he could play songs he himself made. After that, he began writing down more cool riffs that he created as a result of his constant guitar playing. It was with the playing of This Train's "Sandee" that he gained his confidence in his abilities and believed he was actually a good guitar player, as well as his increasing ability to play Miserlou in Dick Dale style. Now he was getting ideas for a band. What is the ideal name for a band? At Red, Hot, and Blue he thought it over. He wanted something shocking and funny, witty, creative that described the band and their style, and just the sound of the words was good, the way they rolled off the tongue made you want to say it again. So if someone ignorant had a choice between an album by someband called "The Beatles" and then the other album was your band name, they would choose your band. But instead he came up with "The Couch Hunters". Which of course was awesome, yet maybe not the best... so then "The Couch Monkies" were born, if that's better, it definitely is awesome and funny, catchy, attractive. And so from then on everything was the couch monkies. The couch Monkies(or maybe couch monkies was after this) were further given momentum by Russ' father who gave he and his brother "The Beatles"- "1" for Christmas of 2001, a band of course everyone knew as the greatest, with such hits as "Yellow Submarine", "Hard Day's Night", "Eight Days a Week", "She Loves You", "I want to hold your hand", "all my loving", and other ones they didn't know the beatles wrote. So for almost an entire year he was obsessed with the Beatles, revolving the Couch Monkies around "The Beatles" in band, music, and ideals. He even wondered if it'd be possible to become better than the Beatles. Did he dare? Did anyone dare? But of course the band had to have the influences of his favorite musics surfer and hip-hop(the recent influence of dc talk's "Free at Last"). It was possible to write surfer, but he couldn't force himself or find a way to write hip-hop/rap. Although it would be cool with surfer, but hard to combine. He worked as hard as anyman, playing the guitar eventually whenever he had the chance to, always thinking one fiddle on the guitar could result in his best song yet. Did he dare do his homework when he could write a riff that would change the world? Of course not, and he did write many riffs capable of changing the world. So pretty much he played his guitfiddle whenever he had the chance to, creatiing in more quality and quantity than most bands. With the possible goal of matching the Beatles or .... surpassing.
In a couchmonkies recession a year later in 2003, Russ had already written over 1000 guitar riffs, had a whole layout for 3 albums-ideas for coversongs and originals to have 3 14-track albums. All the ideas and melodies were created, they just needed to be combined. The 1000+ riffs needed to be sorted! But before he went through that exhaustive exercise he'd rather just write new songs, and go through his magical green notebook when he ran out of ideas and was in need of some good material. For the most part, he assumed that he just remembered his best riffs. Now lyrics were another story, it was hard to write lyrics, get in the mindset to write lyrics, force yourself to write lyrics, or even want lyrics. He liked instrumental music.
It was the glorious, sacred day after Halloween, his cousin Mike came over with his guitar to have a jam session- basically my first one. We just jammed, wrote songs to long-lost girls we met at the beach, and watched some Virginia Tech football game. We had our amps and everything. I showed/impressed Mike with some of my stuff. I played him a cool riff I'd created the day before (The squall song/embers' last request) which was my biggest achievement amidst the recession, although i did make some good jams in the midst of the Halloween hype- calibretto 13 influenced, acoutstic. Mike played some NoFx on our surround sound, and then we got on the convo of MxPx somehow. He said he'd bought one of their albums at Borders for like 10 dollars and one of his friends burned him some cd's of theirs. He asked if I wanted him to get it from his car, I said yeah, so we went out to get it. I only had 10 years and running and slowly going the way of the buffalo and didn't plan on buying anymore of their albums- i didn't think that they were that great- or actually that 10 years was great, but with my conspiratorial mind for some reason i told myself I wouldn't buy any albums by them. So Mike put the cd in. I didn't think it would be good. Hoped it wouldn't be good so I didn't have to buy it. I'm real picky about buying cd's, I guess just cuz they're almost 20 dollars sometimes. The first 5 songs weren't that great, "oh Donna" was one mike like because of the jam out part in the beginning. I remembered seeing "oh donna" on MxPx's massive "best of" at Best buy in sterling. I thought that this was the cd it originally was on. I was thankful that the songs were'nt great, just some more poppy stuff by mxpx. all of the sudden track 6 comes on blasting old school thrasher, grungy guitars and punk drums out of nowhere. What is this? I listen and it gets better and better and.... crud! This is awesome, creative, old school punk!!! Awesome riff! Insanely fast singing, guitars and especially drums!!! Shouting! Then it keeps going and new riffs keep coming like a big thing of different riffs and it won't end, it stops, then keeps going, stops then keeps going!! okay finally it stops.... Okay that's kind of strange that they would just have 1 track like that in the album amidst their poppy stuff... what? What's This?!? The fast grungy stuff keeps going!?!?!? ahh!!! I might have to buy this album now! This is old school punk from back in the day!! This is what the punks would listen to when they would blast their head phones and stereos at lunch, in school, or out side skating in the sun. What the hey? This is that boring song from 10 years.... skip this track. More Grundgy!!!!!!! AAAAAAAhhhh!! I can't comprehend!!!! WHere was all of this stuff.(I later realized there were many, many grungy awesome old school punk songs and for some reason they just kept going. I'd think it was finally the end- I thought it was the end at Small Town Minds- but it kept going, so i kept skipping through and listening. Mike and Bryan said they were tired of mxpx so i'd skip ahead but then listen again. i skipped and skipped ...and i realized this WAS the cd i'd seen in best buy. The best of.) I found that the only songs that I knew on the cd were the songs from 10 Years and Running and all of the worst ones from 10 years except for "the only one for me" songs which is so aweseome! It was so awesome that that song was on there. I made sure to tell Mike and Bryan that I've heard this song before but it's not very good, one of the worst on 10 years- at the 10 years songs i'd recognized. So that night I told Mike on and on and Mom how awesome that cd was . I went to sleep on a music high - just finding some awesome cd/ the key of the old school punk. MxPx's noble trade. What made them popular before all their poppy stuff... Playing the guitar, i wrote a kind of cool riff for the song about Ericka. I decided to be in a band with Mike, and Bryan , maybe Emo to make Lorin mad. Mike liked the dashboard confessionals. We watched a dashboard music video and meant to live by switchfoot. I somehow came up with a cool riff and played it for Mike on my amp in distorted mode. It came from some other song i think (became the guit solo in purgatory) maybe relient k's space or something like it. Mike thought it was awesome. Then inspired to write a more grungy punk rocknroll song I wrote what is now Mike'sPunks. or so i think because i wrote down my riffs and gave them to Mike. He said he lost them but now found them... so awesome .... maybe i can see them again and see if they're the same riffs.
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Terremoto of the Quietones promotes Squiers! You should help Squier get on the map! Go buy one today! We did!
The Squier I use!
