Stick to your dreams

My name is Army, i play guitar in Arizona local band Cold Blooded Theory

Music is life, as we all know. To most of us listening to it is enough to satisfy our demand for it. But for others, like me, i have to play it to enjoy most of it. I am very active in listening and playing music. It’s what i love to do and no one can take it away from me. My dream is to make music my career and do what i love doing beside my best friends. But thats just a little bit about myself, here’s the real deal…

Summer of ’08 was a hard but glorious time for me. Its when my band formed and started to play together. We weren’t supported by a very good budget: I played on a guitar wrapped in duct tape, my other guitarist played on a amp the size of a small computer monitor, our drummer played on a rotting drum set with cymbals covered in oil and mold with 1 pair of taped up sticks, our bass played on a 1970 acoustic amp and our vocalist sang into a broken mic that didnt work (a lot of good that did us) but we had this: HOPE.

We sat in our drummers garage everyday, baking in the arizona heat, the garage was literally over 120 degrees. We played and wrote songs while sweating and dying a thirst. When we were hungry we gathered up the change we could find and bought a few hamburgers from mcdonalds to share. We yelled, disorientated, at each other every curse word imaginable. But yet, we loved it. We loved playing music and we were unstoppable together. We built up a trust between us that couldnt be broken and a brotherhood was formed.

So we played in that oven and wrote in that oven until one day this old lady across the way accused us of harassing her children and creating a major disturbance. After many arguements and police visits, we were forced out of our garage. This was the end of the band for sure we all thought. But we decided there was one place left we could possibly go, our vocalists backyard. So we went there and everyday we played now in the sweltering sun getting burned red like a lobster and becoming dark like a burnt turkey. But still we persisted and hacked it….

Few people had hope in us, my father (god bless him) said i needed a real life and a real hobbie, that music would get me no where. But father, you are wrong. People we go to school with called us losers and said we could never stand a chance in the music business. But friends, you are wrong. Sticks and stones could break our bones but words could never hurt us, in fact, they motivated us. So we held strong and played more…

Our first real show came around at the dawn of November. Excited and egar to play, we showed up to the venue and played a show with no fans to watch. WOW. Feeling down and a little hopeless, we still held strong.

January 11th came and we signed up for Battle Of The Bands. Going against some of arizona’s best bands, we felt very nervous. We played and in the end got sent to the finals to play another round with arizona’s finest of the finest. February 15th came and we played those finals. Going up against great bands, we felt hopeless. But we played anyways. In the end, COLD BLOODED THEORY WINS!!!

The 500 dollars we won was chump change compared to the rest of the prize: Submission to major record labels. This is what we have been waiting for. This is what we dreamed of while sitting in that garage and blistering sun. This is what we wanted most. Cold Blooded Theory was set off in the right direction. By then we had the right equipment and talent needed to succed. We got songs recorded in a studio and more coming. We got huge shows coming up and i have hope that my dreams will come true.

This brings me to the point in my article…

There are many bands, like mine, that struggle so much to get heard of. Their stories are either similar to ours or worse. Everyday they get together to do what they love doing and it brings them happiness. Bands like that do not deserve to be ridiculed or put down. Bands like that, whether there music is good or not, have my full respect. To do what they do takes a lot of strength, persistence, and hope. Being a musician is not easy. And people that talk trash should be ashamed. Bands need our support and positive feedback to keep them going.

Stick to your dreams, never give up, and never take in negative comments. Build off of them and use them to motivate you. And in the end, you will be looking back at the amazing journey and thanking those who doubted you, because it was their comments that built you.