Music has always been my link to humanity. I began producing in my teens, after playing keyboards, guitar, and vocals with my friends for many years. I was fascinated by the incorporation of samples in hip hop music, and fumbled for many years with my own take on it. In high school, I played in a live hip hop band with Derek Smith, Paul Brandt, and Benjamin Linder O'Neill. This evolved into the band Listen. With a slight personnel shift I began yearning an outlet for the production aspect of my creative vision, thus I formed Pretty Lights with Derek Smith.
After coproducing the album "Taking up your Precious Time" I was struck with misfortune; I was robbed at gunpoint and stabbed in the chest and right hand. This led to Derek taking the reigns of PL while I recovered and taking it to where we had only dreamed it to go. I took a break from performing and producing and created the group The Years with long time collaborator Benjamin Linder O'Neill. The Years were primarily a chance to step back from instrumental, sample based production and leap into synthy vocal driven songs. Eventually, as another long time collaborator, Paul Brandt, moved back to CO, we began producing under the moniker Half Color. After stepping back into the world of playing live, I've created an album soon to be released on prettylightsmusic.com
