ABOUT

Writing songs is not something I do for fun, though it does make me feel better. I can’t not write. It’s an urge, a pressure building behind my eyeballs. It’s the place I must go when I’m at the end of my rope. I write in a frenzy, head bursting like a (vol)cano, red hot and violent. 

I am Canohead. What you hear in my songs is an outburst, an outcry. It’s raw, blunt, a razorblade to the throat - a voice lost in a nightmarish maze of relentless guitars. Influenced by Deftones, James Blake and Ibrahim Maalouf, the unrestrained cacophony of metal, indie folk and trip hop finds its center in my life challenges.

The guitar was always just fine, I guess. As a kid, it was better than having to practice the piano. As a tween, playing Green Day beat having to practice scales. But I never understood people who love gear. Instruments have always been nothing more than tools to me, a thing I use to get from A to B. Way I see it, give me any instrument and I’ll make it hurt. 

When I turned 15, the guitar became a necessity. I was an outsider, long hair and easy to provoke. The whole school knew my name, pointed at me, I was pushed around, kids pissed on my jacket. I had no friends, no confidence, nobody to tell me I was ok. It was either kill myself or play until my fingers bleed. So I started a band. We were terrible, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about being good, it was about being louder, nastier and angrier than everything else. And I was good at that. 

When we played, something changed. A few months in, and I wasn’t the ugly outsider anymore. Songs started to crystallize, and hope soon followed. Music pulled me out of the swamp. I got better, and dare I say, I got well. 

I went on to study music and for the first time in my life I was good at something. People looked up to me. I was bursting with confidence and energy, and I pushed myself harder than ever. And the music gave it all back. I wrote a trip hop song telling my younger self to “leave a crack of light” and a self-help book on how to feel better.

I started a YouTube channel showing people how to write songs and it exploded. My book “the Addiction Formula” turned into a bestseller. And I married the most beautiful girl at school. It almost didn’t make sense. I was a different person. This was not the life I had imagined as a teenager, hammering my head against the wall to make it all go away. It was beyond what I had ever dreamed of achieving. 

I wrote an album, the album I had always wanted to get off my chest when I was a kid. “Subface” was a homage to my favorite bands growing up, a way of finding closure with my younger self. Something lifted inside of me when it was finished. I was ready to close that chapter. I thought I had. 

Then my father died, and depression, that old friend, clawed its way back from the corners of my mind. With the help of my family, I managed to heave myself through the first six months. By then the unchecked boxes had started to accumulate. Covid broke out. I went silent online and dove into a frenzy studying music and writing courses. I was afraid to talk to my friends. My wife was pregnant and I felt like I wasn’t enough.

The guitar became a necessity again. I wrote a concept album about losing my father and becoming one myself. I wrote 15 songs in 14 days, exactly one year after his deathday. Like the first album, I wrote it to face my demons, to emerge from the gates of hell and swallow the key, never to return. I don’t know if it worked. There is a hole in my life that I don’t think will ever fill again. 

I like to keep to myself when writing music, and this record was no different. Nobody heard the songs until they were almost finished. But one thing had changed on “Only The Good Things”: the music wasn’t there for me. It didn’t give anything back. It just stood there, reflecting my thoughts back to me, like the songs were feeding on my grief. It’s hard to explain this, even to my loved ones, and it made me feel lonely, like I was running circles in a maze of doors. 

Then recording sessions began. The first person to hear the new material played the trumpet on a few of the tracks. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about the song I sent him. I hoped that maybe he could save it, and was ready to ditch the track if not. I had no idea what would happen next. 

He was on the train when he heard the song, and he was crying his eyes out. It’s surreal reading those text messages now. I have written a lot of sad songs in my life, none had ever made anyone cry. And it wasn’t the last time that would happen with these songs. Friend after friend teared up listening, swallowing hard. 

There was something here that went further than anything I had ever written. For the first time, the songs weren’t giving me back the energy that I put into them, I was getting it from the people who listened to them. I wrote the album in isolation, but ended up forming deep, meaningful connections crying with others. 

It felt good being sad together. I had been trying to find words to how I was feeling, and failed. The music did that. Those fifteen songs, written in a frenzy, explain what I was going through better than words ever could. I had been struggling with myself, but when I started writing, the words came quickly, like I’d been ruminating on them for a while. Sharing my music showed me that I am not alone. 

And neither are you. You know that, don’t you? You don’t have to go through this on your own. I’m here. Even if I don’t know you, I’m here, out here, in the world. We’re all here, struggling and suffering together. It’s ugly, and it’s difficult, and a lot of it is gonna hurt, but it is NOT lonely. Some day, you’ll come out the other side and you’ll still be alive, like millions and millions of people before you, and you’ll see that we’re all around you. So whatever you’re going through, take your time. You can and will beat this. You’re not alone, you’re just ruminating on the right words. 

If you’re here looking for answers, I have to disappoint you. There’s only more questions here. That, and a couple of songs. I’m confused, too. I’m struggling. But I’ll keep writing. And maybe it’ll help.