From LA to the Iron Range to Nashville.

While I was learning how to write songs and perform with my brothers in California, I met up with a husband and wife who were from Minnesota. They both were music teachers and had come to LA to see if they could make it in the music business. Bob wrote songs and was trying hard to get a publishing company to take his songs and help him get an artist contract. We became friends and after their year was up they asked me to come up to MN for a summer and play with their band. The other two members were Carol's brothers. From one family band to another...

Bob had placed some songs with a good publishing company and after my summer in MN, we did go back to LA with the band and recorded a few songs that ended up as 45's. We had some good airplay in Northern MN, which led to my wife and I moving there to see what we could do as a band. We had a blast playing and we really were a good band. This was the school I needed to really hon my craft as a guitar player and singer. But doing weddings, playing in bars, and Masonic and Moose Lodges every weekend just wasn't what I had in mind. Three years later, I knew the only way for me to grow as a writer and succeed was to move to Nashville. In 1982, my wife and I sold everything we had except for what we could cram in our van and headed south.

It didn't take too long before I was playing guitar for a semi-famous Christian artist and my career started as I was trying to find my place in this world. I kept writing songs and within two years I had my first songs placed on a national released record with the artist that I started with when I came to Nashville. As a guitar player, I ended up playing and touring with quite a few Christian artists as I was developing my skills as a writer and learning how to be an engineer and producer. A gentleman who knew my brothers was impressed with my brother Rand, and ended up buying me a 16 track studio to record Rand so he could go back to Korea and become a star! He made his splash as I made my debut as a producer and we ended up back in Korea. Thankfully, I was there a short time and when I came back to Nashville, I was ready to move on with my career. I was tired, frustrated, and really finished with playing the games the publishing and record companies were playing. I told my wife that I was tired of trying to write the songs they wanted me to write and I was just going to write what I wanted to write. That first week home I wrote 4 songs that I wanted to write. Little did I know that one of them would be my first number one charted song, and two others would end up on records and have a good run on radio. This was about the time when I first met my long time friend Professor M. Cody! My brother, jb, was the engineer on his record that he was doing at that time. I was blown away with Michael's writing and singing...and thankfully, the next many years were spent with this great artist.