It is the 1st of OcTIMber October, and the countdown to my birthday begins. So, of course, I'm being extra retrospective this evening. For almost as long as I have been playing the bass, I have been writing various music in different ways. It was my 16th birthday when I was gifted my very first instrument—a black Yamaha that currently resides in a bass case in the closet of my home office. The bridge is missing, it's covered in stickers, and it's signed by Yoshiki Hayashi. I was obsessed with Japanese rock music, and bands like Dir en grey, Malice Mizer, X-Japan, and Merry were in heavy rotation.
Before even owning that first bass, I had pirated a copy of a program called Guitar Pro, which played tabs using MIDI sounds from files I would download off the internet. I was using an old bass that my dad had to fumble around, but this is how I learned the bass and also wrote some of my first songs. I'd open a new file in Guitar Pro and compose parts via tab formation. None of those songs made it past family desktop hard drive crashes, but I'd continue messing around, making music that would never see the light of day.
Some songs did make it through, and there are a handful of songs I've composed in bands that I've performed with, but there was a lack of satisfaction there. I would often introduce parts of songs or only the music, and then the vocalists would take over and do their own thing. It never crossed my mind that I could actually sing and perform my own songs until very recently.
I'm not a vocalist and now I am okay with that. So many songs that I've written need me to sing them. The very first time I stepped up to a mic to sing, I was terrified, and I still get anxious when I do. But if I could go into the past and give my younger self a piece of advice, it would be to sing. Write words and sing them.
I wrote my first single, Earth House, around 2018. The first time I performed it was in 2021. I didn't release it for another year! While there is no rush with these things, I have to admit the fear really held me back for such a long time. And now that I’m getting over those fears, I'm growing and learning more than I ever have.
Sometimes fear is the answer, and you have to walk straight into it.