For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a musician.

That’s not quite right.

I wanted to be a rockstar when I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s.
After high school, I lowered the volume on the dream. Singer-songwriter sounded more reasonable.
Now I call myself an artist.

That’s what time does.
It doesn’t kill the dream. It strips it down until only the part you can’t live without survives.

That voice never left.
No matter the job.
No matter the title.

It stayed with me.
At first it whispered.
Then it screamed.

When I left the NSA after 10 years of misery and bullshit, I finally listened. I told myself I was doing it for the art. Full time. Music. No safety net.

That wasn’t the whole truth.

What I really wanted was proof. Proof that I hadn’t made a mistake. Proof that I could stand on my own. Proof for my parents, especially my dad, and for everyone else who questioned walking away from a stable, comfortable, high-paying government job.

Money became the evidence.
Paying the bills became the goal.
That was the first mistake.

It didn’t work.
Not right away.

I chased music the same way I’d chased approval. I needed it to validate the decision.

I played more shows and built a property management company that turned into a small contracting business. I knew that world. I’d worked construction on and off since I was 16, since my Uncle Tombo handed me a job and a hammer.

Matapeake Property Management took off.

Construction has a playbook.
Follow it and you can win.

Music doesn’t.

The more I focused on proving I could succeed, the further the dream slipped. The thing I said I left everything for became an afterthought.

The fallback plan took over.
Misery followed.
Same feeling as before.
Different routine.

I was working for a paycheck again. I was proud I’d built it myself, but pride doesn’t feed a dream. It just keeps it on life support.

The upside was money. Enough to record new music.

So I went into the studio.
That’s where the pattern repeated.

I wanted the record to justify everything. The career shift. The risk. The years.
I let outside voices steer it because they sounded confident and experienced.
They knew what sold.

I spent $10,000 of my own money on a record others loved and I hated.

It wasn’t what I heard in my head.
I knew it while it was happening.
I ignored it because I wanted approval more than truth.

Doing something for others instead of yourself always fails.
Maybe not immediately.
But it always fails.

After a lot of wine and a long talk with my wife Jen, who was my girlfriend at the time, I admitted it.

I’d fucked it up.
Again.

Another expensive lesson bought with my own fear.

I trashed the record.
Swallowed my pride.
Started over.

This time, I wasn’t trying to prove anything.

That’s when things shifted.

I stopped fighting what was already true.

I couldn’t control opinions.
I couldn’t control whether anyone was proud.
I couldn’t control how the story looked from the outside.

I could control my work.

Ideas came back.
Risk followed.

So did criticism.

People called it crazy.
Some still do.

Becoming something original is lonely work. It hurts. Doubt moves in. Darkness lingers.
But it’s honest.

I never thought of myself as a storyteller. Others used that word first. Not musician.

Storyteller.

I hated it.
It felt like aging out.
Like compromise.

What I really hated was how obvious it was.

A musician is a storyteller.
A storyteller doesn’t need a guitar.

Not everyone has to love my music. That was hard to accept.
But stories land differently. They stay.

And ignoring that felt like wasting something I didn’t get to choose.

I grew up on an island everyone eventually realized was changing.
Not when they arrived. Not at first.

Later.

They talked about it. They shook their heads. Then they went back to their lives.

I know that feeling.
You see something slipping away. A place. A version of yourself.
You notice it. You name it.
Then life keeps moving and you’re expected to do the same.

Fields disappeared. Trees fell. Old places vanished quietly, replaced by condos, McMansions, fences, and progress.
The island’s history.
My heritage.
Fading in plain sight.

I kept thinking music was the point.

It wasn’t.

The stories were already here.
They were just waiting for someone stubborn enough to refuse to look away.

—

I wrote this at 5:43 a.m. on December 31 because my brain never shuts the fuck up.
At 7:00 p.m. on February 13 and 14, I’ll continue the story.
Not the cleaned-up version.
The parts I didn’t put on the page.

I’ll be performing original songs and sharing pieces of Stories of the Island’s Son as it exists right now.
Unfinished.
Still breathing.

Members of Candlebox will be in the room with me for a night that lives somewhere between MTV Unplugged and VH1 Storytellers.
Darker.
More personal.
Rooted in real memory.

Chesapeake Sons will open the night.

If you’re here, you already know this isn’t just a show.
It’s a continuation.