Cloister

Starting a band is a tough thing. Maintaining it is even harder. It takes time, money, luck and talent. A serious lack of any one of these attributes and it's not going to last very long.

The first time I was ever on stage in front of people with a band was in Kansas City in 1984. I was only 10 years old hanging out at some club during a Sodbusters (whose members eventually became The Sin City Disciples) show. Someone noticed how young I was and thought it would be funny to get me to sing a song. So up on stage I went. I was told to sing something. At the time the only song I knew all the words to was Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio". The musicians on stage started playing and I started singing. It was such a thrill I have no real recollection of it, just a vague impression. That impression has turned into a lasting influence on me even today. The first band I was in started around 1991 called The Asbestos Sisters. The one and only band I started and attempted to maintain was a band called Cloister.

Cloister began while I was living in South Saint Louis in a house on Alfred Ave. I had convinced Mike Cook to move from Jackson, MO to Saint Louis and help me with the band. He did so and we set up the basement as a rehearsal/recording space. Also from Jackson, MO was Garrett Fronabarger who was already living in Saint Louis and was interested in the idea of playing in a band. Garrett played guitar and was a natural. While in high school he had played with The Church of Bowling (which also featured Tim Evans on guitar) but it had been awhile since he had played with a group. We had no real idea of what type of music we wanted to create. I wrote simple tunes on an acoustic guitar, Garrett was great at playing lead and Mike wrote songs, programmed a drum machine and played a mini-Moog. Needless to say the music that came out was kind of strange.