One of my first musical memories happened around 1982/1983.  As a kid my mother packed us into the family station wagon to go and get my father from work.  As I lay in the bed of the station wagon looking up at the stars, I can remember a song coming on the radio that to this day takes me back.  The song was "Arthurs Theme" by Christopher Cross. 

 

We had such high hope for WHERE we wanted the music to go. Somewhere along the way our destinations changed.

 

I was always around music. My dad would sing and whistle every song in the car.  I received my first instrument when I was in Junior High, it was an Alto Saxophone and I hated it. I wanted to play the drums.  I had very little interest in learning anything about that instrument.

 

I was also in chorus. I loved to sing.  I still do.

 

I got my first guitar at age 17 for Christmas. It was a Fender Squire.  I promised my mom I would take lessons, but that was a fantastic waste of money.  The teacher only wanted to show me the high 'E' string for the first 3 practices. So I quite.  Well, lets say postponed.

 

A few weeks went by and I knew I hadn't got what I needed out of the guitar just yet.  1998 was the very early days of the internet.  I found a few websites that taught me Tablature, an easy way to cheat myself into playing songs.  It did work wonders however and I was playing "Plush" by Stone Temple Pilots in no time.

 

About a year later I had written about 5 songs the first of which was "Andersons Basement"  A song I wrote about hanging out in a friends basement waiting for him to get home.  That experience gave me my first original song. (Andersons Basement was recorded two times. Once on the CD 'My Attempt' and an alternate version with me also playing the harmonica was on the CD 'Reaching Away From Me'.)

 

My first Album of original music was My Attempt in 1999.  I have only listened to it a handful of times in the last 10 years but it sure was something special to me at the time. I wanted everyone to hear it.  It felt like quite an accomplishment.  It was what started it all for me.

 

In 2000 I recorded the album Reaching Away From Me with a friend who had all the great equipment and the knowledge of HOW to use it.  That album gave me the song 'Angel Dear #3'.  To this day I can still enjoy that song and have even had the recent inclination  to revisit it.

 

When I left to go to University I took with me 2 albums and the desire to flesh out and start a band.  

 

In the years to follow I co-founded the band FIRST NAME BASIS. That was my first experience with making music in a group.  We played anywhere and everywhere.  From Frat houses at Penn State University to the Rock Lobster in Indiana and from Chicago to Champaigne, IL.  We really had a great time and learned  a ton about the music industry and booking gigs.  It was a special form of education.  We recorded the album Everything All At Once in 2002. It was a whirl wind session in a week, tracking all night and day. In the end we were extremely proud of the music we made on that album.

 

We broke up on January 3rd, 2003 and it was heartbreaking. We had such high hope for WHERE we wanted the music to go. Somewhere along the way our destinations changed, as it does for so many hard working bands.

 

I spent most of that next year learning more and more about the guitar and training myself on new ways to perform with it.  I purchased pedals to loop with, a banjitar, a 12 string and also started to learn a few scales.  I learned a little lead (enough to fake my way through a few gigs with friends) and started to work on my first series of new material in 2 years.

 

I wrote the music for a song I called 'Passions of Mozart' at that time. The song started out wordless simply a great tune that I played over and over and over again.  In the fall off 2004 while living in Schaumburg, IL, I finally found inspiration for the lyrics.  I searched for meaning in the breakup of FIRST NAME BASIS and through that soul searching came the song 'My Skin'.  It is still to this day one of my favorite songs as a whole that I have written.

 

In late 2003 early 2004, I started a small acoustic 'thing' with Gabrel Gomez that we named BOXCAR.  We had one radio interview (leftover from my good will with First Name Basis.)  We performed the songs 'From Stars To City Lights' and 'My Skin'. Aside from that we had a single performance in Downtown Chicago and that was all for BOXCAR.

 

In the spring of 2005 I moved to Colorado.  I needed a fresh start in a new city and wanted to capitalized on the inspiration that the mountains brought to me when I would visit Estes Park during my college years.

 

Once in Colorado, I posted an ad on Craigslist and found a guy with inital  interest in playing with me.   After talking on the phone we decided it would not work out.  This guy did however, tell me about a drummer he had just worked with and it didn't pan out for them. The guy gave me the phone number of the drummer and he and I parted ways.  A few days went by with no response to my ad.  I decided to give the drummer a call and see if he was available to jam.

 

That was how I met Stevland Kullas.  Stevland and I spent 5 years piecing together our first project but it was well worth it.  in the Fall of 2006 we met our bassist and still dear friend-- Jed Riley.

 

Together we formed the band TWO DAYS DRIVE.  We created a pretty nice following in Denver and even played a great slot  at the MID AMERICAN MUSIC FESTIVAL in Omaha, NE in 2008.  We recorded one album together titled PAGES FOLD.  That album was a labor of love that was started before Jed arrived (almost a full year) and was finally completed a year after we started TWO DAYS DRIVE.

 

In 2009 TWO DAYS DRIVE parted ways on a very nice note. We played a benefit to support the Denver Childrens Hospital at The Grizzly Rose.  It was a very special end to a very special band.

 

In 2011 I moved to Seattle, WA and during that time recorded a few tracks in our loft in Denny Triangle.  Some of which you may even hear someday soon.

 

In 2012 my wife and I lost our daughter, Aisley Evelyn, during labor and decided it would be best to move back to Denver to be closer to support at that difficult time.

 

On January 8th 2014 my wife and I welcomed our son, Meyer Colden into the world. A few years past and on April 27, 2017 we welcomed son number 2 Raleigh Anderson.

 

I am currently at a special place with my life and my music.  I will continue to record the new album (as of this writing I have 3 tracks ready to go) and I even have a few ideas to reach back into my old music for a few special songs that i've never recorded that will probably finally make the cut, not to mention a song i've collaborated with my wife on.

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After releasing the Tenth ANNIVERSARY edition of Two Days Drives album Pages Fold, as well as a twenty year retrospective album in 2018, I am plotting all the songs unsung and not recorded.... stay tuned. 

 

              Matthew Eizenga