the story of Harding Avenue
as told by Ethan Baum
My band is called Harding Avenue! This is the story of how we all met. I think its a fantastic story, hopefully you'll agree. Sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Ethan (ME)
The story of Harding Avenue begins way back in the fall of 2019 when I first moved into my apartment on Harding Avenue. This was certainly a lonely time for me, it was my sophomore year of college, all of my friends had left on church missions or to pursue other things in life. This meant that aside from a few mutual friends I knew from High School, I knew almost nobody in Cedar City. This was a lonely and tough time for me, but also a great time for music and growth in my life. With lots of free time, I was able to spend hours creating music every day!
Every day on my way to class and home from class, I would cross the street next to my apartment. And nearly every time I needed to cross the street I would want to cross to the complete opposite corner from where I lived. This meant a lot of waiting and awkward waves and gestures from drivers, and a lot of circumnavigation techniques that usually left me feeling pretty frustrated. At some point, I began crossing the street in a direct diagonal path, walking as fast as I could to avoid making cars wait for me.
Every time I walked through the center of the intersection, I would look up at the street sign that said “Harding Avenue” and I would think about how cool it would be to name an album after the street.
The days passed and my idea continued to grow. At the time I was listening to a lot of Steely Dan. Inspired by their habit of inviting many different musicians to play on their records, I determined that I would need to create an album called “Harding Avenue” with a bunch of other musicians from around the community. I had always wanted to start a band, but I never found anyone to play music with! So making an album with a bunch of different musicians sounded especially fun! However, I didn’t know any other musicians. At all.
Luckily around this same time, I learned about a Music and Production club at Southern Utah University. I mustered my courage, swallowed my social anxiety, and attended a club meeting. That was where everything started to change.
JOn
I first met Jon in late Fall of 2019 in the music production club, and based on first impressions, I would have never guessed that he and I would have similar musical interests. Jon was is an exceptional guitarist, one of the best I’ve ever heard. He talked a lot about metal, which is a genre I know nothing about. But somehow after the second club meeting i went to, we ended up talking in the hallway for what must have been two hours! Jon and I had so many similar interests, both in and out of music. We both liked paleontology, (he was already working in the field as a paleontology intern for the BLM which was very impressive) we both liked science fiction and old B horror movies, we both loved Van Halen and Rush, and we were both gear heads.
After a lot of talking, eventually Jon got my email and we ended up working on a few projects together. Due to the Corona Virus pandemic, we were forced to work remotely. We would email each other HUGE pages of ideas and we generally had around 12 conversions at a time, each within one or two long emails. I recorded drums for a few of Jon’s songs and he recorded guitar for a few of mine. All summer long, we worked on music together through emails. Included in those emails was a mysterious bass player named William Walker Heaton, who Jon had told me about, but I never met. Until I returned to SUU fall of 2020.
will
I first met Will while jamming with Jon one night in the traditional secret room in the music building. Jon described Will as “the son of a 16th Century Lord” and as strange as that may sound, it was completely accurate. Will popped in for only twenty minutes, just enough time to play one song with us. But I was already greatly impressed. Will was amazing at bass, he made up an expert level part to one of Jon’s songs on the spot. While we played it. It was incredible. A few weeks later I finally sat down with Will and jammed with him alone for a while. It was then that he showed me a few of his originals. I’ll never forget the moment he played his original, “the Storm” for me. It was, and still is one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard.
It was immediately apparent that Will was much more than just a Bassist, his song writing, acoustic guitar picking, and singing skills were also phenomenal.
anna
Anna is a confusing tale to tell, because I’m not sure when she officially became part of the band. She and I met in a Geology class in the Spring of 2020, and when the pandemic shut the world down, we started exploring it together. We ended up taking so many memorable trips that spring, and she eventually became my closest friend. I knew she played violin, but at some point during the early stages of our friendship she showed me a video of her playing a feature with a professional symphony! I realized she had never truly displayed the full scope of her talent. She started jamming with Jon and I. Despite my worries that purists might reject the presence of violin in a rock band, Jon and (later) Will approached the idea with possibly even more enthusiasm than me!
At this point we had almost everything we needed in the band. I play keyboards and Drums, Jon plays lead guitar, Will plays bass and sings, and Anna sings and plays the violin. However when faced with the possibility of a live show, we realized that I could not easily play piano and drums at the same time. Luckily in the Fall of 2020 we met another character that filled out the band perfectly.
reggie
I first met Reggie when I trained him at Thunder 91.1, the University Radio station. As per my tradition, I made him and his co-trainee Matthew Hendrix hop on the radio with me during their training. This might seem scary, but I’ve found it breaks the ice and makes people more comfortable when doing radio. I was immediately impressed by Reggie’s sense of humor. He and Matt were hilarious. On my recommendation, they combined their shows and started their own radio show, called “Weather in Bosnia”. The station manager heard them and actually promoted them to the morning show, which is well known for being the spot for the most entertaining and polished radio personalities.
When I heard who the morning show personalities were, I was very excited for them! I reached out to them, congratulating them and asked if I could visit their show. After appearing as a guest a few times Reggie and I became great friends and eventually discovered we shared a passion for vintage synthesizers and drumming.
One day Reggie, Anna and myself headed over to the music building, where we were fortunate enough to find a drum set that we borrowed from a friend of mine. Reggie and I started playing together and something just clicked. I also learned that Reggie is no run-of-the-mill drummer. His playing is exceptionally polished. He is one of the best drummers I’ve encountered.
aubrey
Aubrey was my friend Freshman year of College, and upon her return from her mission. We picked up exactly where we left off. Although she had done choir and I knew she played a little piano, we hardly ever talked about music together.
Since we were both from the Salt Lake Valley, we often rode up and down for school breaks together. On one such drive, she told me she had been working on writing a song. I was ecstatic! She started writing songs, singing, and even learned the guitar in the space of a few months, and her absolute raw creative abilities still impress me!
addy
Addy was one of my best friends Freshman year of college, and was also friends with Aubrey. She and I wrote the first song I’ve ever written with another person, a song about mountains. I was very impressed by her ability to come up with catchy melodies, and she has a fantastic voice. When Addy got back from her mission, she moved in with Aubrey and Anna and we immediately made her start singing backing vocals for the band! After entering the Battle of the Bands competition hosted by Thunder 91, we decided Addy would become the only official member of the band. This was done to avoid conflicts of interest since Reggie was MCing the event and I was in charge of organizing it.
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