A birthday post to think about my first music experience: Straight Edge

Well, today is 32 years I'm on this planet. Exactly half of my life ago I discovered my true vocation that still burns my soul. Because I was 16 years old when I decided to become a guitarist.

When I was in high school I had a teacher who played in a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band. He decided to create a "school of rock" situation and gathered together some students that were playing any kind of instrument and students who wanted to try.
I was playing guitar for a year at that time. One of my classmates already played drums and was very talented. My brother was three years behind in the same school and wanted to sing, while one of his friends played guitar, and he also was really talented already. Then a friend of mine decided to play bass guitar for the first time in his life and that's where my first band was born.

We called ourselves Straight Edge, because at that time we didn't drink, smoke or do drugs (obviously, we were kids) and we weren't even interested in those things.

As any band in its first period, we played cover songs. We played hard rock and our setlist was ranging from the 70s to the late 90s. Aerosmith, Ramones, Guns n Roses, AC/DC, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, KISS, Foo Fighters and so on.

We weren't so good 😂 but we changed band members many times and always improved. We decided to focus only on the 70s, adding Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple to the list, plus our original songs.

me and my brother

Our songs talked about typical rock topics: girls girls girls, party hard, how we felt so strong and on fire while playing rock n roll and having a good time.
Also we liked to dress to impress... at least me and my brother. We are fans of the 80s glam metal era and we covered ourselves in leather, colorful tissues, wristbands, belts etcetera.

that was actually my cleanest and simplest outfit ever

Our greatest inspiration was Aerosmith: singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry, aka "The Toxic Twins", are our idols and we tried to be like them on the stage. We wanted to be remembered by who came to see us and we always hated those musicians who play live by standing still, watching their shoes.

We were burning for rock n roll and we wanted to show it to the world

We continued to play until 2019 when my brother left to make his own metal band and we lost our drummer too. You know, having band members leaving over and over again becomes exhausting at some point, especially in the countryside where there are not so many musicians for replacing.

It was fun until it lasted. Here's how we used to sound in one of our last live sets:

the camera sound is not so good, sorry. Unfortunately I don't have more recent videos.

I said my brother left Straight Edge to make his own metal band. Well, they were looking for a guitarist so I joined too 😝 That band was called Chain Reaction, and some years after we changed our name in Scyther, my last band before going solo. But that's a story for another time...

Thanks for joining me in this little throwback of my first music years.
Cheers to anyone who's born the 14th of August 🥂

If you're curious about my actual music project, check out my website harbiter.com or my Instagram