Brian was born on August 22, 1984, in Columbus Ohio. Brian first started playing music on his mom's guitar and the pots and pans of the house. He didn't seem to have any talent at this point.
Brians first musical interests were strictly classical music. Brian took up playing piano at the age of six. He took lessons for two years playing several organized concerts. At one of them, Brian won an award for best piano player. He stayed into classical music until he was eight, when he found Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Brian got an acoustic guitar, but never really learned how to play it. At the age of ten, one day before leaving for Canada for vacation, Brian heard Van Halen's Eruption and knew he wanted to play guitar. He got his first electric guitar and learned the chords to Tom Petty's song Free Fallin'. The only chords he knew were D, G, A, and C. He banged around with those for two weeks, eight hours a day. Needless to say, people got pretty tired of him, but he kept going.
When he got back from Canada, he started taking lessons from Jerry Miller, a classical guitarist. Brian took lessons from him for one year but switched to Jonne Zell, not wanting to play classical guitar. Jonne was and is a mentor and guide for Brian.
Brian soon got into to 60's and 70's rock era. Brian started taking in influences from the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Kiss, and other bands of that era. When Brian was twelve, he started a band named Psyche with Brandon Miller, and Nick Johnson. Brandon and Brian had jams together many times. Nick was on bass, Brandon on drums, and Brian on guitar and vocals. They sucked.
Brian's eighth grade year at Priceville Elementary School he got a band together named Black Sun. They consisted of Dusty Suggs on vocals and rythm guitar, Brandon Miller on drums, Nick Johnson on bass, and Brian on guitar. They played the smashing pumpkins song Today for the talent show and got third place. Dusty booed the judges.
The beginning of Brian's freshman year, he and Brandon joined forces with two other people that wish not to be named, and ironically, Tyler Hodges. They played two Metallica songs at Brewer High School's talent show.
After the talent show, Brian left the band to do his own thing. He rejoined with Nick Johnson and Brandon Miller and they messed around for about six months, calling themselves Illusion. Devon Stewart came on as vocalist for about a month, but then he had to move.
Steven Latham came in as rythm guitarist and vocalist, and the band became Illusion 37. They played the Brewer High School talent show their sophmore year, playing two Blink 182 songs and an original named Falling in Love. They were kicked out of the talent show for playing over the time slot by five minutes. They tried to get revenge at the end of Free Bird by Steven smashing his guitar. This line up of the band played a few gigs during the summer.
During that summer, Nick left the band, and Casey Ecksteine came on as bass player. Steven and Casey were at eachothers throats most of the time. This ended up with Steven leaving the band. Brian decided that he wanted to do something simple with no strings attached.
He and Brandon and Casey played around for a while and Brian eventually asked Tyler Hodges to be the lead vocalist. About a week after Tyler joined, Illusion 37 and Casey split ways, and Nick Johnson came back on as bassist. They signed up for Battle of the Bands, and changed their set list the week before. They practiced every day, but Nick stopped showing up.
Josh Price, one of Brian's friends, was over one of the days and picked up the bass, and played along with Second Without You. They sounded great. It was a band decision that Josh replaced Nick. Brian continued writing songs, and Illusion 37's original material arsenal grew. They recorded a CD in the summer of 2001, called Illusion 37. It had seven songs, all original material. It is availible from this website.