I guess i started to change that opinion when one of my [6] sisters boyfriend, Kevin, started coming by my house more and more often. He'd always leave cd's over by mistake, and out of boredom id listen to some of this stuff. Since i never really listened to music til this point, i didnt have a "taste" yet, so i was there to be impressed. I remember the cd's being Greenday, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Ash, Extreme etc. Of course at this point i have to tell you that these all changed my life, because they actually did. I stopped playing football to favour hearing new music. I remember being in my sisters apartment really early one morning with headphones on, listening to the "keep the faith" album by Bon Jovi, and not realising i was singing along.. Of course i woke my sister up, and she wasnt happy. That was the start of it all...

Anyways, fast forward a few months after i really got into Music, and "rock" especially. And Im told im not allowed to go on a school trip because ive been "bad" [i hated miss quigley]. So whilst my class are being briefed on their lovely day ahead, i was at the back of the room with my friends walkman on, conveniently listening to Bon Jovi "something for the pain" and singing aloud unintentionally, as you do. That was until i had a guy [who i'd not really spoken to since Primary School, as we were Arch Enemies] called Sean Keddy come up to me and compliment my voice, of course i was a little shocked at this, but he really shocked me when he asked.. "will youTry out for my band?". Of course i said "yes", because, well i guess i wanted a new challenge, and this seemed to be it. The band was called "Delaconda"

To cut a very long story shorter. I joined the band, and it was so much fun. We stayed back after school every day except fridays and just played Greenday covers. That was ALL we did. Although when i first joined, beatles and Oasis covers were thrust upon me.. But when i opened everyones eyes to Greenday, that all change. It was a fun period, i felt involved and i felt like i was learning, and i was happy. I could feel myself become a better musician [even if all i did was sing]. The cool part about the band was that, every free lesson we had at school, the teachers would always let us "go to the music room" to play, or 50% of the time, we'd bring acoustics to our classroom and play for everyone. Fun times.

The Gear

Daveit plays a Pilsen Idol, HB35 & an NV300.

Anyways, soon after we began writing, our guitarist really started to wind all of us up, and we decided to send him packing. It didnt take long for me to realise that i should probably learn guitar [something that sean enforced]. And so i set about learning bits and pieces, and within a few months, i was playing guitar and singing to a 1,000 or so people at the Rialto with the band. The highlight of that show, was all the sweeet schoolchicks backstage! But once again, it was an event that triggered my learning of something. I grew rather obsessed with the guitar after that. I bought a little black tape machine from Cash generator, and when i put on a tape, and pressed Play/Record, it used to pick up what i was playing. I still a bunch of old tapes with random songs and random riffs. I grew obsessed with songwriting because of this little black tape recorder. One of my old ex-girlfriends has it, and note-to-self, ask her back for it sometime soon.

So after a while of writing with this band, my first band. We somehow decided to break up, im actually not sure why, as i dont recall any fights or any arguments. But for some reason, the band no longer existed. But in a bizarre twist of fate, the band who we all looked up to at the time [Future Real] were having issues with their Lead singer. They asked me one day would i be up for singing in their band and i said "no" because i thought it was a joke. Surely i could step up in the world this fast? It became set in stone one day when Mark [drums] and his friend called to my house very randomly and asked me to come with them for an audition, I put on my clothes again and went and did the audition, and they liked me enough to ask me to Sing for the band. Wahey! This band was alot more professional, older, wiser and better. We had our own little rehearsal room [mark and geards bedroom] that we'd do 3 rehearsals a week in. The day i did my first rehearsal with them i walked in a bit early to find Geard on the phone saying "yeah no worries, he should have it all done, no worries, for sure". Turns out they had a gig planned for a weeks time, and i had to learn 15 songs in that time. I loved that challenge, and i passed it, with flying colors!

My time in Future Real was very very enjoyable. I learnt so many things. I had my first proper rock "show", i learnt how to be a frontman, i learnt how to sing better, I was in 2 proper recording studios making cds. It was a fantastic learning curve. I didnt think i would ever NOT be in the band, until i thought about my own development one day. Id been writing for a couple of years at this stage, and i really though i had some great songs, but everytime id try show a little riff here and there, they'd be rejected. I think i just got to the point where i thought about myself getting better, as opposed to the band getting better, and i decided to leave the band. It was all friendly though. So that rocked.

The next stage of my life was the most crucial i think. I wouldnt be part of another band for about 6 months. And in that time, i started learning more about songwriting. I scoured the interweb to find a way to record my songs alot better than the aforementioned tape player. And i found software and how-tos and tips etc, and i set about being my own band. I set up a soundclick.com page [still online] and i began putting up all my little songs that id recorded for people to listen to. The response was fantastic, so many people seemed to like the songs, and that made me more inclined to keep to a strict regime of studying the art of songwriting and recording things. I began developing as a jack-of-all-trades and i found it really contenting for a while, but i began to miss working with other people, and i began to miss alot of things. I evaluated my 6 months songwriting learning, and i considered it valuable, but i wanted to Test my newly found Knives, so to speak, with a full band...

So i enrolled for a Music Course at College and i met alot of great musicians. I formed a new band "Traffic Episode" after a few weeks of being at the school. This was my chance to really step up to the plate and deliver upon my working over the last 6 months. I was Lead Singer/Lead Guitarist and SONGWRITER. I was super pleased, i liked this new role, and i worked hard to keep my place. Songs like "sick of you" & "the distance" & "angels looking" really started to show how much id developed as a writer. I began to write more and more, and the band got better and better. We made it through to the final of a Nationwide competition after only a few months together, not bad. I guess it'd be fair to say that i loved this band so much that i lost my longtime girlfriend, Tracey [all i have left] over it. But sadly that passion was not really shared by the rest of the band on the same level. Our drummer lacked dedication and decided to quit the band just before the start of summer [after having made 1,0003,000303 summer plans]. Needless to say, that was it for us, there didnt seem to be any drummers around, we'd all left college, and we had nothing to bring us together from our different cities anymore. Complete shame. We're all still great friends though.

The main positive that came from Traffic Episode, was that its death gave birth to "Mascara Story". Shortly after Traffic Episode died, i was again lost as fuck. I didnt know what i wanted to do next, but i knew i wanted it to be rock as fuck. I remember having a random night out with Sean Keddy as usual, and the obvious subject of music came up and we began talking about our first band and how shit we were etc. Then as the bottle emptied, we started talking about how we should hook up again and start a new band. Sean had seen me a lot of times with Traffic Episode, so we decided that it'd be a three piece and that i'd do guitar and he'd do bass. I remember skipping up and down the street beside foyleside after we planned this new band, i knew that it'd work if me and sean were involved. Of course we hit a wall though, who was going to play drums? We knew no real drummers.. Until one day a guy called Peter commented that his friend liked my "solo" songs and had liked Traffic Episode. When he mentioned the guy was called "Jay", immediatly me and Sean knew who he was talking about. He was a local guy who played for a few bands and was terrific [even back then]. He came to my house one day with peter with a videotape of his drumming, and i adored it, i adored the tape and his approach with the tape, we arranged a rehearsal at college and we hit it off. Sean came in the next day for our first full band rehearsal, to find out that we'd written "Cue the violins" on the first day we'd ever met.

From that moment on, it just got better and better, we took it more seriously when we began seeing more people at the shows and more good comments online. Myself and sean always strived to make our latest song beat the shit out of the one before, and we always achieved it in our minds. We played alot of shows, everywhere and anywhere and we built up quite a local following, all of this, i hadnt achieved before. We got asked to do some cool shows in venues that we thought were for "big bands", as well as having a regular night at the nerve centre which we always headlined. We got cahir [jetplanelanding/fighting with wire] down to our rehearsal room one day to give us advice on what we were doing wrong and how to be better [as we all respected him alot], and he gave us alot of pointers which we took onboard as we went in to make what would become our first EP. We were so happy with the sound of the cd that i entered us into a competition i saw online called "Snickers unsigned by kerrang", i honestly didnt think id hear anything back. But strangely enough.. I did. We could not believe our luck when we were shortlisted from thousands to just the final 10. wow! Then our hearts stopped when we were told we were in the final three! We prepared and prepared and prepared, we werent going to blow this shot. We flew over to london to play against the other bands, and we won. Plain and simple. We rocked the fuck out and sounded great.

what resulted was alot of media attention, getting signed, doing tours, meeting lots of cool bands we adored, playing download, recording another cd, releasing a single and seeing it chart, gaining respect, making london our second home, making a video etc etc. It was the high life for lots and lots of months. But in a sense, because we'd fasttracked to "fame", we'd never really built ourselves up. By that i mean, we hadnt done our own tours, or been together so much. So when we were forced to be together all day every day. Our pet peeves began to show. There was never any LOW points that come to mind, but there were alot of silly arguments that just were the result of alot of pent up frustration. There were no fist fights or name calling, it was just a matter of "nah but you dont understand"s and "i dont agree"s. Id be the first to admit that i was the problematic member, because i didnt know how to act anymore. I think my head wanted to be somebody who my heart didnt and i got schizophrenic to the point where i didnt know who i was anymore. It sounds dramatic for just being a musician new to the industry, But we did things at an alarming pace and i simply wasnt ready for all the things that came with being in a popular band. That all i really have to say on the issue. Jay left the band at the end of october 2005, and myself and sean just ended it there and then also. Goodnight Mascara Story.

I knew i didnt want to stop music again at this point, so i immediatly jumped headfirst into another band. I started "Rescue the astronauts" with Ciaran at the start of november 2005. But our band wasnt to mateiralise the way we wanted it to until January 2006 when Falloutboy asked us to support them on the irish leg of their tour. It felt good to be back. The momentous thing about this show was that our drummer for it was.... Jay Mascara Story. Him and i decided to not hold grudges and that we cant work without one another despite our best attempts to pretend we were better than the other. It felt good to be back in a band with like minded people. I had missed it so much. We released an EP called "Your Scissors/My Seatbelt" which got amazing reviews and now its present day. We have the perfect band in our eyes, and hopefully this biography will go out of date really fast because of all the Things we will achieve with this band.

So this is now. Im turning 21 soon and have big plans for Rescue The Astronauts, i also have big plans for my solo work and plans to followthrough with that "last ever Mascara Story" show.

Thanks for reading, I hope i didnt bore you and i hope i made sense.