So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
I grew up in Pennsylvania. I was born in Wilkes Barre, PA. At the age of five I moved to Hershey and I’ve lived here ever since and I love it. It’s a small town but it’s where I call home.
I guess at an early age I decided that I wanted to become a musician, because I loved music so much. There were so many times that I would come home from school, go to my room and put on an album and then I would air guitar, air drum and lip sync in front of the mirror, and basically pretend that I was performing for a crowd.
How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
The name Aversion Theory is taken from my old band Suture Seven’s first album, it was entitled Aversion, and I intended to call the project Aversion, but I did some research and found out that there was another band that already had that name. I really liked the name but I had to come up with something to go with it, so I threw around a lot of names to go with it and finally came up with Theory thus Aversion Theory was born in April 2014.
Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
I think every artist has made a mistake while performing; if not then that’s quite odd. I was the vocalist for Suture Seven, and a few times there were some mishaps like forgetting the lyrics during a song or dropping the microphone. And being the drummer of Death Machine there were some mishaps while drumming dropping your stick having to grab for another one or breaking a stick and having to grab for another one or just losing the beat a little bit. The bottom line is that you have to keep going; you can’t stop. I was told you have to just work through it keep performing and you know everything should fall back into place eventually or hopefully.
Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
I have never toured extensively. I’ve played a lot of shows with both Suture Seven and Death Machine, but they were usually just traveling to the show and traveling back and nothing really out of the ordinary; just your average rock and roll experiences. I have as yet not played any live shows as Aversion Theory, but I hope to rectify that in the near future.
Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
I usually get my inspiration for my songs when I’m out and about walking my dogs, or just taking a walk. I get ideas in my head as I’m out there, it’s peaceful and quiet and I usually get a melody in my head and then add the lyrics and vocals to it. But the important thing is when I get home I record it right away, because a lot of times, more than once, I’ve had ideas in my head that I thought were great, but when I got home I didn’t do anything right away and then later on they had disappeared right out of my head. As far as how I go about my songwriting, I work on the music first. I do the drums, the guitar, the bass, the synth, and any sounds. I work on that and get that done first then I go back and I write the lyrics and add the vocals, so I usually work my vocals around the music and I know a lot of people do it the other way but I feel more comfortable doing it this way.
If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
That is a really tough question. There are so many artists that have been around that I would love to perform with. My favorite band of all time is Cheap Trick and I got to meet them once. They’re great guys and I would love nothing more than to perform with them. But I would also love to perform with Nine Inch Nails. I believe they are one of the greatest bands of all time. And it would have to be at Wembley Stadium because I would like to play a super big venue.
When was the first time that you can remember feeling the impulse to become a musician?
Like I said earlier, I basically had the impulse to become a musician at an early age. I love the music and listening to so many different albums and different styles of music. I think it was my destiny to become a musician.
What moment/person/piece/etc. served as the catalyst for your starting down the path of a practicing musician?
There’s so many answers to that question! I think just listening to so many different albums. I remember my one friend putting on a John Cougar album, and it was the song “I need a lover that won’t drive me crazy” and I thought to myself, “man, this is what I want to do. I want to do what he’s doing!”
***
You can check out Aversion Theory‘s music on Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon + 200 other digital music outlets courtesy of Halo Askew Entertainment. For more info, www.HaloAskewEnt.com
Halo Askew Entertainment 