well I'm from Milwaukee Wisconsin I got my start in music in the late 80s uh there were some punk bands I was friends with and they knew I wanted to sing and I was a little punk rock kid so they would invite me to do guest vocal work like come up for one or two songss and then I got bitten by the bug that's how I started little bit of pain goes a long long way can't have the rainbows without the rain there you [Music] go when I was about 21 my folks gave me money for my first electric guitar and I went to a local local guitar shop and bought a 61 silver tone and then I am selftaught and I think the first song I Learned was like ride me high by Bob Dylan and as soon as I learned all the open chords then I was which I just played wrong then I was Off to the Races and starting to write my own [Music] materiales always seem fun till somebody else breaks down you just Ming around a of pain when it comes to songwriting I've been criticized before because I don't write generally happy songs but they are the songs that come out of me and I believe in being genuine to what's inside because if you're not I think people can pick up on that when it comes to my solo stuff I I call it you know it's a little bit Torchy it's a little bit haunted and it's a little bit twangy my primary instrument is electric guitar and I do loops with a pedal board and I'm kind of a one-woman band so it was nice for me today to just sit and play an acoustic which is a much simpler setting from what I'm used to am say anyway going down down down down I've had some very touching moments where people come up to me after a show and share very personal things about how a song helped them through a hard time and um those moments like really stay with me and i' I'd say that was the primary reason that I am a musician and stay a musician is to try to um comfort people and make them feel good even if it's through a dark song maybe there's an emotion they need to release whether it's crying or laughing which has been bound to happen in in my in between song banter sometimes then we miss a beat Strang steps Upon Our feeding soon all the rainy days just get us down keep us [Music] down so don't you know that I love you I need to play music and write music in order to stay sane and make sense of the world that we live in today so I think the passion just comes from wanting to keep my head above water because art is like therapy for probably not only me but so many other people going down