No band in school. No lessons growing up. No theory, no piano, nothing. I played baseball. When an injury ended that in 2011, I bought a guitar in a college dorm room because I needed something to do.
I tried lessons and quit after three sessions. Not because the teacher was bad — he was teaching me guitar, and I didn't know yet that I needed something else entirely.
By Easter 2013 I was playing at a small church in North Georgia. Wrong notes in front of a full room. Setlists I couldn't hear my way through. Fake it till you make it, week after week.
In 2017 I walked into Free Chapel. The musicians there spoke in numbers — the Nashville Number System — and I'd never heard of it in my life. I faked my way through that first rehearsal and figured it out fast, because the alternative was getting replaced. Eventually I was a regular. I have been fortunate to play at Victory World Church, Northpoint, and countless other churches, youth camps, and worship events in the last 13 years.
I still can't read music. I'm not a naturally gifted musician. I'm a guy who kept getting put in rooms above his level and had to catch up every week.