Happy Monday y'all! It's 4th of July weekend and I hope everyone is celebrating and doing it safely. Growing up, that wasn't always my family's policy. We took great pride in having a bottle rocket war every year, until someone's hair caught on fire! It is funny now to think back on, and we are very lucky that's all that happened and it was not much worse, but when you put a bunch of crazy rednecks together you eventually will get the "hold my beer and watch this" and sometimes it doesn't work out too good. But no one got hurt so I can look back on it now and laugh about it and give an example on what NOT to do.
In the spirits of Independence Day, I'd like to talk about America a little bit. Our founding Fathers were some of the smartest people of the last few centuries, but they were also a bunch of Rebels.
Britain: "Pay for this tax that has nothing to do with you and will not benefit your people."
America: "Uuuuh, No. Go fish this tea out from the bottom of the harbor and kick rocks while your at it."
Of course, I'm paraphrasing, but I would like to think that is kind of sort of how it went. As a band, it is along the same lines, as far as a mentality goes, not comparing their incredible sacrifices to ours, but the mentality of being told what you are supposed to do versus what we are wanting to do is a little bit similar in that sense. None of us grew up playing music or had any family ties to the music industry. We just fell into it after high school because it was small town America, not much to do, playing music was fun, and once we got to taste the rush of playing a live show we pretty much knew that our dream is obtainable, we just have to start at 0 and try to work our way up to 10. This is definitely not the standard where we come from, it's basically the polar opposite. This is one of the many beauties of our country, however. It's okay to want something different from the normal, even though others may not necessarily agree with it.6 1/2 year of sacrifice, hard work, and persistence is what has allowed us to be in the position we are in now. We believed in ourselves and our dream and that in turn led us to thousands of other people we call Family, that also believe in what we do. We are very fortunate to be able to do what we do because of all the support from around the country.
I am a little biased on this, but I think that our story, the story of 4 guys starting to make horrendous, gut wrenching noise in a shed, investing our own hard-earned money into the band to help us get started, practicing 3 nights a week, knowing that we weren't very good and trying our best to remedy that so we hopefully don't suck as bad as we used to, hitting the road and taking our music to people in new places with unfamiliar faces and turning this into a national band that has slowly but surely been becoming more successful over the years, that is pretty All American to me. That is the epitome of the American Dream. We aren't the only ones that have had a dream, we just happen to be a group of guys that had a dream, sacrificed almost everything we had at that time in order to go pursue it, and now we can start to see all of it paying off almost 7 years later.
Your dream can be anything. It doesn't have to be a rock band. It can be a doctor, a vet, a police officer, serving in our military, or just being a missionary trying to help others. Whatever it may be, it is your dream and your right as an American to go pursue it. I believe that falls under the "Pursuit of Happiness" clause and it is here for our use. So go out, do American things, blow stuff up, hit the lake, buy a homeless man a hot dog and a milkshake, shoot some guns, whatever it is that makes you feel proud to be an American, go do that and let's celebrate our great nation! Be safe, don't take everything too literal that I say, and Happy 4th of July America!