More stories from our past...

Here's another story from the Grimpths' early years. This story involves how Curtis and I met and decided to start a band.

We became neighbors when I moved to Draper, Utah in 1992. We lived only a few blocks away from each other, but we never actually met until some time in the early summer of 1999. This is probably because I first became friends with the kids that lived in my immediate neighborhood, and there were a LOT of them. Plus, Curtis and Scott didn't attend the same church or high school that I did and that's where I met most of my friends. In any case, I didn't know them at all until we met at a boy scout summer-camp that summer. By this time I had become less interested in my friends as they started pursuing sports and other hobbies that didn't appeal to me.

I was feeling more and more alone and it was very refreshing when I met Curtis. We happened to be sitting next to each other for the long drive to the camp ground, so we struck up a conversation about school and music. Curtis was not a Mormon, and yet I found that I had a lot more in common with him than I did with my old friends. At this time my favorite bands were They Might be Giants, the Aquabats, and probably Beck. But I was also starting to get into this old school funk genre that really spoke to me. Curtis let me listen to music I had never heard before; Primus, the Residents, and more. Hearing Les Claypool's bass technique was one of the most exciting moments of my life. I continually borrowed Frizzle Fry and the Brown Album from Curtis during the trip; playing the CD's with an old panasonic CD player that drained batteries like a beast. Curtis and I immediately became life-long friends. Within minutes we were laughing histerically at absurd jokes and ridiculous humour consisting primarily of goofy alliteration. It was just what I needed!

After the campout we loaded our gear and headed home. Curtis and I sat next to each other again and started a very important discussion. Curtis mentioned that he actually played bass guitar and that his brother played electric guitar. He mentioned that he had been wanting to start a band for a while now. I think that at this point I knew two chords on the guitar. My dad had tried desperately to teach me how to play since I was very young. But I had stubbornly refused, promising him that I would never play guitar... EVER. This is probably because my dad played almost exclusively bluegrass; a style of music that didn't really appeal to me at the time.

I told Curtis that I played guitar too, though that was definitely a lie. Immediately we started plotting and planning the future of the band. We would be on the radio in a few months. We were so naive. It soon became sharply apparent that this idealized plan would most certainly take years and years to come to fruition. That was 10 years ago. Hopefully now the Grimpths are at a point where success is possible.