Bio

Alan started writing songs in 1995 on a $99 Casio keyboard he got for his twelfth birthday. But those songs weren’t very good.

For his fifteenth birthday, seemingly not having learned a thing from past mistakes, Alan’s parents bought him an electric guitar. After blistering up his fingers on Nirvana and Green Day covers, Alan began writing new songs on his new guitar. This time the songs were marginally better. Especially with the introduction of Alan’s new songwriting partner, Darryl Kinley, on vocals and sitting behind the drums.

Alan and Darryl wrote over 70 songs between 1998 and 2002 before Darryl moved to California to start his own record label.

In 2008, at 25, Alan began reworking some of his old songs with UK pop and rock star Tom Milsom. Nine months later, Alan and Tom gave birth to the EP Taking Leave, Alan’s first commercial release.

Taking Leave was released on DFTBA Records, the record label Alan co-founded in late 2008 with friend and fellow online musician, Hank Green.

Kicked in the ass by Taking Leave’s success (the music video for “Can’t” was streamed over half a million times online), Alan quickly partnered with singer/songwriter Raven Zoë to begin writing all-new material for what will become his debut full-length album, Erase This. After contributing to four songs, Raven left the band. Alan is currently working with Luke Conard and Ted Hu to complete the album.

The first single from Erase This, “Winter’s Song”, was released on December 15th, 2009.

In addition to his own albums, Alan has contributed a few songs to other artists’ albums, including co-writing “Nerdfighteria Island” with Monica Carr for Hank Green, and writing the lyrics for two songs (“Can’t” and “Summer of ‘09″) for ALL CAPS‘ second full-length album, Bmin/E.