Up AGAIN!!!
Can't sleep, done studying, just completed my Spirit of Jacksonville "Official Bio". Here it is:
Richard Tyler (Tylergandalf the Wise) Ritter
The day is September 25, 1985, and in the catacombs of Brookwood Medical Center's Baby Delivering Depot a fine lass by the name of Cathey hit her husband Rich as the contractions of her soon to be born baby boy kicked at her innards. As the story goes, a very long male infant squeezed his way through her maternal door and was completely silent. The doctors were stunned at the silent child, not used to such a calm new comer.
That was me, T-Rit. I was born the son of a school teacher and a professional golf player. I spent most of early years on a golf course with my father, you know learning the family trade. My two younger brothers, Chris and Casey, were usually right there with me. We grew up in Homewood, AL where I went to Hall Kent Elementary school just for kindergarten, then moved the lush Hills of Vestavia right up the road. I performed the typical Vestavian things such as playing baseball, basketball, soccer, and football. When I was in fourth grade, my dad went through a series of what I like to call "midlife crisis endeavors" and switched professions; Dad basically got tired of working for a preppy country club and needed a change of scenery. Shortly after he became an onsite electrician for Haymaker Electric and Birmingham and quickly moved his way up to Master Electrician. My mother taught at Simmons Middle School in Hoover until I was born. When my brothers and I were in the middle school age range she went back into the profession at Hoover High School, then moved to Spain Spark, then began working at Vestavia Hills High School my senior year (that was fun, let me tell you... haha).
My two younger brothers are pretty much, as my friends would put, exact carbon copies of me. They have the same interests, listen to pretty much the same music, and are both huge nerds. Yep, definitely carbon copies.
Enough about my family, who cares about them? Here's my story:
The earliest thing that I remember about myself is a fishing trip with my grandfather in which I caught four huge bass and didn't catch a d**n thing. I was four years old. I spent most of my formidable years hanging out with my dad at work after school at the golf course and playing for all of Vestavia's youth league sports. I didn't even think about music let alone drumming until I was in the fifth grade. My parents weren't and still aren't musicians or really musical at all. They were, however, avid music lovers... rockers! My mom was really into the Beatles, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, and Fleetwood Mac. Mom got me into straight up Rock and Roll music. This music was an early sing-a-long setup for my future interest in music. My dad, from whom my "nerdy" traits derived from, was into stuff like Yes, The Allman Brothers, ELO, ELP, Alan Parson's Project, Ricky Lee Jones, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, and other bands of that sort. Dad's musical taste would be the one to lead me to my favorite type of music, progressive rock.
Before I decided I wanted a drumset in fifty grade, I had taken piano lessons for a few years, and honestly thought it was gay... just flat out gay. As lame as this sounds, the first music video that I can remember seeing was Green Day's "Long View". Excluding the gross yet humorous content of the song, watching that video and seeing Tre Cool acting like a total goof and tearing it up I knew instantly that I wanted to be a drummer. So of course, next came the begging. To my surprise that christmas, I woke up that glorious morning to find the most beautiful sight my 12 year old eyes had ever seen: a white "Talon" five piece kit (mind you, set up completly backwards... haha... no one knew how the hell to set it up) complete with "Typhoon" hihat and crashcymbal. I sat down on that kit and played most likely the most God awful out of time beat anyone had ever heard, but oh how I took to it. That same christmas a friend of mine got a guitar, and ofcourse started playing (well, trying at least) to play together. By the time sixth grade rolled around, I was still playing football, basketball and basedball but was also playing in the middle school band. I had stopped listening to Green Day and had moved on to what I thought was the pinnacle of musical perfection: METALLICA!!! I started learning all of Lars' licks and began taking lessons with Vestavia's high school drumline instructor, Russ Maddox. I was livin' large. Middle school went by and I was getting a little bit better day by day, not really practicing, but learning Metallica tunes, cause I thought that was all that mattered.
In eighth grade, I had a revelation. There's other music than Metallica!!! Who would've thought. I discoverd three bands that to this day are still my three all time favorite: Tool, then Primus, then RUSH!!! I wanted to learn how to play like Danny, Tim, and Neil. My best friend Ben got a bass in eighth grade, and we jammed non stop. I turned Ben onto those bands and he turned me onto jazz. Artists like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Weckl Band, Herbie Hanthingy, and other jazz greats. We started a band and played Primus' "Electric Uncle Sam" for the eighth grade talent show. When high school hit I decided to quit playing football and do marching band. Definitely the best decision I ever made. It completely changed the path that I was planning on taking.
Other than the band that consistently was comprised of only Ben and myself, drumline was life! I played cymbals my freshman year and won the award for coolest cymbal pregnant dog... hahaha... and moved my way up to tenors sophmore year. Junior year I was one of two non senior snare players, and senior year I was the big dog section leader. The guys on VHHS's drumline were my brothers in arms, my best friends. We did all kind's of stupid crazy crap together. The best thing out of that experience was discovering different music with those guys. We all listened to different music, and we all felt the excessive need to share "our" bands with one another. If there was a band on campus, one of us played in it. My band with Ben became one of the two Big Groups at Vestavia. Ben and I found a ridiculous guitar player that lived in Tuscaloosa to play with us. We shoveled around differned band names and started off as "Ol' Kentucky Shark Liquor, Corporation" for those of you SpaceGhost Coast to Coast fans out there. That name definitely sucked, so we changed it to "Uberchron PC 8 and The Spanish Funk-wa-sition, featuring Admiral Ackbar and the Trap Getter Inners" which was shortened to just "Uberchron." The name stuck, and sort of fit the bizarre jam band/progressive metal that we dished out. We were like a mixture of Tool and Phish with a side salad of Frank Zappa topped with an Allman Brothers vinegrate sauce. We were d**n good for a high school band. When senior year came around, Ben and I were deciding to both go to UA in Tuscaloosa to continue the band. This seemed like the perfect place for me to go, until I found out about Belmont University.
As my "official bio" from Rolling Stone goes, I visited Belmont University on a whim, found out about their commercial music program and that Chester Thompson (Phil Collins, Genesis, Frank Zappa, Weather Report) and Chris Norton (Classical Shredder Extroardinaire) were the heads of the percussion department, and from there on was hooked. I hated leaving my friends who were all destined for Auburn and Alabama and going to Nashville, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. It wasn't until senior year of high school when I began to play with the thought of making a career out of music and songwriting, but the idea of attending Belmont solidified my desire to be a pro. So that's where I am now, done with my sophmore year of college, and playing in two new bands. My main band is called Belerian (named after a region of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth that sank into the sea after a horrific 100 year war), an attempt to recreate and expand the music of my early 90's heroes Primus and Tool, fused with some 311 style hip hop and some NIN's indused mayhem. The other band is a jam/roots band called Moon Taxi that I just recently joined that's been touring just about every weekend sincen early Febuary of this year. Both bands have offered a challenging enviroment for me to experiment with odd time, electronics, learning how to write songs, and travelling the South East.
Now, I suppose I need to include how Spirit came about. One of percussion major buds, Kyle McCarter (former Spirt Tenor player, now marching his ageout year for the 06 Cadets!!!) convinced to try out for Spirit and Memphis Sound on tenors. I of course thought I had no chance in hell at making it, but somehow made it to the end of tryouts for Spirit. When Clint told me that I wouldn't be marching for Spirit, I was disappointed, but I knew that I wasn't good enough compared the other guys that were to make it. I'm not real sure how the issue came up (but thank God for Dan, and the fact that he for some reason liked my goofy hippy ass), but Clint and Dan figured out that I played kit and asked me if I was interested in trying out for Spirit as a drumset player. I was honored to be given the opportunity, but had no idea what it would be like. After the first run through with me on kit and a freaking drum line behind me, I knew that this would be an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
This will be my first real tour, and DEFINITELY the biggest audience I've ever had to play to. It's also going to be the hardest gig I'll probably ever have, but I don't think I've ever looked forward to anything so much!!!
So that's my story up until now. Sorry for the long post, but I'm bored and it's very late. I've got two finals to go then I'm counting the days down until All Days. HELL YEAH!!! I suppose for the sake of a "Who I Am" post I'll leave you with a few generics that are vital to these "get to know you" thing-a-ma-bobs:
Favorite Music: Tool, Primus, Rush, Wayne Shorter, Frank Zappa, The Mars Volta, 311, Phish, Umphrey's McGee, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Dave Mathews Band, Galactic, Slayer, Dimmu Borgir, Dream Theater, Dragon Force, Children of Bodom, Sublime, Cream, The Who, SteppenWolf, etc.
Favorite Books: Lord of The Rings, Catcher in the Rye, Davinci Code, A Town Like Alice, Lamb, Beowulf, Ender's Game
Favorite Movies: Lord of the Rings (all three), any Tarantino, any Scorcese, most Spielberg, most Kubric, The Last Samurai, Boondock Saints, Office Space, Starship Troopers, and all five of the Leprechaun Movies starring Warwick Davis aka Willow
I also like to write... A LOT!
Tootles...
Richard Tyler (Tylergandalf the Wise) Ritter
The day is September 25, 1985, and in the catacombs of Brookwood Medical Center's Baby Delivering Depot a fine lass by the name of Cathey hit her husband Rich as the contractions of her soon to be born baby boy kicked at her innards. As the story goes, a very long male infant squeezed his way through her maternal door and was completely silent. The doctors were stunned at the silent child, not used to such a calm new comer.
That was me, T-Rit. I was born the son of a school teacher and a professional golf player. I spent most of early years on a golf course with my father, you know learning the family trade. My two younger brothers, Chris and Casey, were usually right there with me. We grew up in Homewood, AL where I went to Hall Kent Elementary school just for kindergarten, then moved the lush Hills of Vestavia right up the road. I performed the typical Vestavian things such as playing baseball, basketball, soccer, and football. When I was in fourth grade, my dad went through a series of what I like to call "midlife crisis endeavors" and switched professions; Dad basically got tired of working for a preppy country club and needed a change of scenery. Shortly after he became an onsite electrician for Haymaker Electric and Birmingham and quickly moved his way up to Master Electrician. My mother taught at Simmons Middle School in Hoover until I was born. When my brothers and I were in the middle school age range she went back into the profession at Hoover High School, then moved to Spain Spark, then began working at Vestavia Hills High School my senior year (that was fun, let me tell you... haha).
My two younger brothers are pretty much, as my friends would put, exact carbon copies of me. They have the same interests, listen to pretty much the same music, and are both huge nerds. Yep, definitely carbon copies.
Enough about my family, who cares about them? Here's my story:
The earliest thing that I remember about myself is a fishing trip with my grandfather in which I caught four huge bass and didn't catch a d**n thing. I was four years old. I spent most of my formidable years hanging out with my dad at work after school at the golf course and playing for all of Vestavia's youth league sports. I didn't even think about music let alone drumming until I was in the fifth grade. My parents weren't and still aren't musicians or really musical at all. They were, however, avid music lovers... rockers! My mom was really into the Beatles, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, and Fleetwood Mac. Mom got me into straight up Rock and Roll music. This music was an early sing-a-long setup for my future interest in music. My dad, from whom my "nerdy" traits derived from, was into stuff like Yes, The Allman Brothers, ELO, ELP, Alan Parson's Project, Ricky Lee Jones, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, and other bands of that sort. Dad's musical taste would be the one to lead me to my favorite type of music, progressive rock.
Before I decided I wanted a drumset in fifty grade, I had taken piano lessons for a few years, and honestly thought it was gay... just flat out gay. As lame as this sounds, the first music video that I can remember seeing was Green Day's "Long View". Excluding the gross yet humorous content of the song, watching that video and seeing Tre Cool acting like a total goof and tearing it up I knew instantly that I wanted to be a drummer. So of course, next came the begging. To my surprise that christmas, I woke up that glorious morning to find the most beautiful sight my 12 year old eyes had ever seen: a white "Talon" five piece kit (mind you, set up completly backwards... haha... no one knew how the hell to set it up) complete with "Typhoon" hihat and crashcymbal. I sat down on that kit and played most likely the most God awful out of time beat anyone had ever heard, but oh how I took to it. That same christmas a friend of mine got a guitar, and ofcourse started playing (well, trying at least) to play together. By the time sixth grade rolled around, I was still playing football, basketball and basedball but was also playing in the middle school band. I had stopped listening to Green Day and had moved on to what I thought was the pinnacle of musical perfection: METALLICA!!! I started learning all of Lars' licks and began taking lessons with Vestavia's high school drumline instructor, Russ Maddox. I was livin' large. Middle school went by and I was getting a little bit better day by day, not really practicing, but learning Metallica tunes, cause I thought that was all that mattered.
In eighth grade, I had a revelation. There's other music than Metallica!!! Who would've thought. I discoverd three bands that to this day are still my three all time favorite: Tool, then Primus, then RUSH!!! I wanted to learn how to play like Danny, Tim, and Neil. My best friend Ben got a bass in eighth grade, and we jammed non stop. I turned Ben onto those bands and he turned me onto jazz. Artists like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Weckl Band, Herbie Hanthingy, and other jazz greats. We started a band and played Primus' "Electric Uncle Sam" for the eighth grade talent show. When high school hit I decided to quit playing football and do marching band. Definitely the best decision I ever made. It completely changed the path that I was planning on taking.
Other than the band that consistently was comprised of only Ben and myself, drumline was life! I played cymbals my freshman year and won the award for coolest cymbal pregnant dog... hahaha... and moved my way up to tenors sophmore year. Junior year I was one of two non senior snare players, and senior year I was the big dog section leader. The guys on VHHS's drumline were my brothers in arms, my best friends. We did all kind's of stupid crazy crap together. The best thing out of that experience was discovering different music with those guys. We all listened to different music, and we all felt the excessive need to share "our" bands with one another. If there was a band on campus, one of us played in it. My band with Ben became one of the two Big Groups at Vestavia. Ben and I found a ridiculous guitar player that lived in Tuscaloosa to play with us. We shoveled around differned band names and started off as "Ol' Kentucky Shark Liquor, Corporation" for those of you SpaceGhost Coast to Coast fans out there. That name definitely sucked, so we changed it to "Uberchron PC 8 and The Spanish Funk-wa-sition, featuring Admiral Ackbar and the Trap Getter Inners" which was shortened to just "Uberchron." The name stuck, and sort of fit the bizarre jam band/progressive metal that we dished out. We were like a mixture of Tool and Phish with a side salad of Frank Zappa topped with an Allman Brothers vinegrate sauce. We were d**n good for a high school band. When senior year came around, Ben and I were deciding to both go to UA in Tuscaloosa to continue the band. This seemed like the perfect place for me to go, until I found out about Belmont University.
As my "official bio" from Rolling Stone goes, I visited Belmont University on a whim, found out about their commercial music program and that Chester Thompson (Phil Collins, Genesis, Frank Zappa, Weather Report) and Chris Norton (Classical Shredder Extroardinaire) were the heads of the percussion department, and from there on was hooked. I hated leaving my friends who were all destined for Auburn and Alabama and going to Nashville, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. It wasn't until senior year of high school when I began to play with the thought of making a career out of music and songwriting, but the idea of attending Belmont solidified my desire to be a pro. So that's where I am now, done with my sophmore year of college, and playing in two new bands. My main band is called Belerian (named after a region of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth that sank into the sea after a horrific 100 year war), an attempt to recreate and expand the music of my early 90's heroes Primus and Tool, fused with some 311 style hip hop and some NIN's indused mayhem. The other band is a jam/roots band called Moon Taxi that I just recently joined that's been touring just about every weekend sincen early Febuary of this year. Both bands have offered a challenging enviroment for me to experiment with odd time, electronics, learning how to write songs, and travelling the South East.
Now, I suppose I need to include how Spirit came about. One of percussion major buds, Kyle McCarter (former Spirt Tenor player, now marching his ageout year for the 06 Cadets!!!) convinced to try out for Spirit and Memphis Sound on tenors. I of course thought I had no chance in hell at making it, but somehow made it to the end of tryouts for Spirit. When Clint told me that I wouldn't be marching for Spirit, I was disappointed, but I knew that I wasn't good enough compared the other guys that were to make it. I'm not real sure how the issue came up (but thank God for Dan, and the fact that he for some reason liked my goofy hippy ass), but Clint and Dan figured out that I played kit and asked me if I was interested in trying out for Spirit as a drumset player. I was honored to be given the opportunity, but had no idea what it would be like. After the first run through with me on kit and a freaking drum line behind me, I knew that this would be an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
This will be my first real tour, and DEFINITELY the biggest audience I've ever had to play to. It's also going to be the hardest gig I'll probably ever have, but I don't think I've ever looked forward to anything so much!!!
So that's my story up until now. Sorry for the long post, but I'm bored and it's very late. I've got two finals to go then I'm counting the days down until All Days. HELL YEAH!!! I suppose for the sake of a "Who I Am" post I'll leave you with a few generics that are vital to these "get to know you" thing-a-ma-bobs:
Favorite Music: Tool, Primus, Rush, Wayne Shorter, Frank Zappa, The Mars Volta, 311, Phish, Umphrey's McGee, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Dave Mathews Band, Galactic, Slayer, Dimmu Borgir, Dream Theater, Dragon Force, Children of Bodom, Sublime, Cream, The Who, SteppenWolf, etc.
Favorite Books: Lord of The Rings, Catcher in the Rye, Davinci Code, A Town Like Alice, Lamb, Beowulf, Ender's Game
Favorite Movies: Lord of the Rings (all three), any Tarantino, any Scorcese, most Spielberg, most Kubric, The Last Samurai, Boondock Saints, Office Space, Starship Troopers, and all five of the Leprechaun Movies starring Warwick Davis aka Willow
I also like to write... A LOT!
Tootles...