This is the continuation of a series of posts – select Category LIFE AS A BAND MEMBER to read in sequence.

As of the post, it has been four years and seven months since they found Dennis’ body sitting on his couch in the living room of his Sachse Texas home.  Robbie, his little brother, found Dennis that Wednesday morning when he dropped by to check up on him. At the time, I was sitting in a conference room at work in the middle of a meeting when I received a text from a mutual friend, Steve, on my phone.  I was shocked.  I had to leave the meeting and sequester myself in my office so I could digest what the text said.  I cried.  I called Steve back and he verbally confirmed that Dennis, my friend since tenth grade, was dead.

My life with Dennis was defined by our love for the same music, guitars, and a very similar sense of humor.  We worked hard to make each other laugh.

Meeting Dennis

I met Dennis in the Fall of 1997, my eleventh grade year of high school. We met during a Geometry class at Killeen High School (KHS) in Killeen Texas.  We were both sitting in the back of the class.  We were both Army brats.  While my family lived on the army base, Fort Hood, his family lived in Killeen.  We got to talking and soon realized that we both loved the same rock bands and from that point on we were best buddies.  It helped a lot that we had a Geometry teacher that would allow us to decorate the classroom with pictures of our favorite guitarist from our favorite rock bands. Pictures torn out of the latest rock magazines.  Pictures of Alex Lifeson and Angus Young were prominently displayed above the chalk board.

The biggest commonality that bound Dennis and I for life was the guitar.  He had taken up guitar and was learning how to play where as, I had taken guitar lessons one summer after sixth grade and knew some chords and how to tune a guitar. It had been many years since I had played but Dennis’ enthusiasm inspired me to pick up my guitar and seriously learn how to play again.  

During that whole spring semester we would talk about music, guitars and sometimes Geometry.  Dennis would come to class with new guitar knowledge to impart to me. Using his arm as a guitar fretboard, he would show me how to play the latest barre chords he had learned.  I had never learned such chords in my beginning guitar lessons.  All I knew was basic open strumming chords used by folk guitarist.  Barre chords were rock.  Barre chords were an epiphany.  It was like learning the secrets of the universe.  The clouds parted and a new understanding of songs was gained. Barre chords were what all our favorite bands used to play their songs.   

Our Geometry classmates looked at us with amusement as we would grab our right arms with our left hands and play out the sequence of chords from a favorite song as we pretended to play the guitar.  I learned quite a lot of songs this way from Dennis.  Before long, I realized I needed an electric guitar, my acoustic guitar was not going to cut it. So, with Dennis in tow, we visited a pawn shop in Killeen and I bought a cheap, very cheap, electric guitar.  From that point on it was destiny that we start a band.  How could we not.  We graduated from the back of a classroom jamming on our fretboard arms to actually playing our instruments through rented amplifiers with other people at a place called the music center on Fort Hood. 

This story continues next week.