Growing up, my dad was a professional singer and my mom was a DJ, so as far back as my earliest memory I've been around music basically all the time. Both of my parents have the voices of angels and used them lots around the house, so growing up I was always singing as well. It drove babysitters and daycare workers nuts, apparently. But it worked out, because due to it I grew up with some strong natural vocal abilities.

That being said, with both my parents in the music industry - we all know it doesn't pay the best, so I never had the opportunity to learn an instrument in my youth. Music instruments and lessons for them isn't cheap. But, I did have access to computers.

I knew from around the age of 8 that making music was something I needed to do. I used to write tons of lyrics around this age, and come up with melodies and record them into a handheld tape recorder. Around this same age, my family got our first household computer. I didn't realize this could open the door to me making music until I was around 12 years old. I learned through online music forums about cheap DAWs and convinced my parents to buy a very basic one for $20 or so. And so began my journey.

Originally, it was me and my high school friend in a little music duo. It was horrendous stuff, but the start of my musical adventures. We were about 13/14 and hadn't a clue about how to produce or anything. I had my singing voice and that was about it. We'd make very simple beat loops using said DAW my parents bought me, and then record our vocals over top of them through the microphone in a webcam. It was all we had access to.

Ten plus years and several thousands of dollars later, I'm still doing it only with far, far, far superior equipment. My original partner in music has since moved to Australia and is a body builder, but we stay in touch and he is still a music enthusiast.

I have new partners in music now, and each day we continue to pretend we know what we're doing and pluck on with the dream. I love making music, I listening to music, and this will never change.

Cheers,
Deryk