When he reached high school, Kevin embraced cross country running, another endeavor that allowed him plenty of time inside his head. Like many high school kids, Kevin started to explore dark, heavy music. One of his close friends made him mix tapes from 311, Rage Against the Machine and Tool. At first he didn’t know what to make of this music, because it was so different from anything he had ever heard before. After spending some time with the songs, Kevin was hooked. For the first time in his life, Kevin found the connection he was looking for, but it wasn’t to a person--it was to music. Now Kevin had certainty. He wanted to be a musician. He wanted to connect to others who were struggling to make sense of their worlds. He took on the nickname, Subanez, which is a combination of one of his older songs titled “Submission” and the guitar brand Ibanez. Submission + Ibanez = Subanez. By the time college rolled around, Kevin/Subanez was totally immersed in ROTC and already had plans to become a fighter pilot. Attending Syracuse University and working full time was intense, and Kevin realized if he was going to continue making music, he was going to have to do it 100% solo. There just wasn’t enough time to put a band together and make it to rehearsals. He had already picked up the bass, and would borrow a guitar from a friend when he wanted to lay down tracks on his computer. Bass, vocals, guitars, and eventually synths, keyboards and drums, Kevin/Subanez learned to do it all and he loved the freedom of being able to create an entire song on his own. After leaving college, Kevin found himself working grueling 18 hour days and preparing to fly the F-15E Strike Eagle for the United States Air Force. Music provided a crucial outlet from the stress of daily training. Kevin/Subanez set up his home studio and got busy sorting through 40+ songs that he had written over the past 6 years, while still creating new material. His goal was to create multi-dimensional songs that dealt with the frustrations he had struggled with over the years. One trauma in particular, would become a focal point for Kevin’s life and music. When Kevin was almost 5 years old, his father, (who was high on pain killers at the time) broke into a house and was shot to death by the home owner. The homeowner’s wife described the experience very nonchalantly: “Bing. Bang. Ding. One dead. The other shot.” Kevin’s father lay dead on the floor and his buddy that he broke into the house with was wounded. Kevin/Subanez became obsessed with the woman’s casual account of that night’s events. Five months ago, Kevin’s perspective on that night changed, yet again, when his house was robbed as he and his wife slept. He says, “Who knows what would have happened if I had heard them. I’m sure I would have reached for my gun. I absolutely would have. Because I’m in the military, I’m trained to deal with situations like this, but there’s no training to deal with the feeling of being completely violated by strangers going through your stuff downstairs while you’re peacefully asleep with your wife upstairs.” Kevin used this personal trauma to write “I don’t want to (But I need to)” which explores the idea of there being at least 2 sides to every story. “I tried to understand for years why my father would have broken into that house. I knew he was in constant pain from a motorcycle accident. I didn’t know that he was totally reliant on heavy-duty pain killers to make it though the day. I got a deeper understanding of my Dad’s reality when I suffered a severe back injury and started to go down the same road. I needed a steady stream of hard core meds to make it through my day. That’s when I started to think about how there are so many different perspectives for any given event.” “I don’t want to (But I need to)” has an almost Radiohead-esque shimmering low key sound, while most Subanez songs are revved up rockers that are closer to Tool. In March 2010, Target Audience Magazine wrote: “Subanez presents a sound with stark similarities to System of a Down or Tool, combining interesting, heavy guitar riffs through alternating melodies and dissonant chord progressions. Full of imagery and substance, the lyrics don’t shy away from dark and deep topics related to sin and life.” Kevin/Subanez recently went into the studio to record a new version of “Resemblance.” He played all the guitars, bass and sang, while Grant from the band Fly2Void sat in on the drums. It’s clear that working in the studio brings an extra layer of polish to Kevin’s work, so he’ll be back in the studio to record “I don’t want to (But I need to).” “When I get into the studio to work on ‘I don’t want to, (But I need to)’, I’m sure my perspective on my Dad will change again. That’s how this works. You create these songs and then they start to take on a life of their own. I am looking forward to sharing my work with an audience and having an impact on them hopefully the way that Tool, System of a Down and Alice in Chains have had such a profound effect on me.” <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/subanez">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.