In the spring of 1984 I met Kevin Brown at a Trollz show, through a mutual friend who played bass in the same band. Later that year I met Jim, who was living in the 808 Donna House that the Trollz used as their practice space. After the Trollz broke up, Jim started up a band with Kevin (the classical trained guitarist) on bass, Jim’s best buddy (who was new to drums) Gary P Jones on drums, and Jim, who was a fledgling guitar player, on guitar. They practiced in an unused office of their employer.

Another mutual friend, Kelly Smith, heard me drunk singing to the radio at a party one night and joined with me. The next day he told me about this new band our friends had started, and how they just happened to need singer. 

I went to see their practice session the following week and asked what they had as far as lyrics, vocal ideas etc., and Kevin said “That’s your job man!” And thus it began.

The name Life Underwater or, Lifeunderwater, we never did nail that down, came from one of the first full songs we wrote as a quartet. We gigged quite a bit around the SF Bay Area for the next couple of years and after numerous auditions, eventually hired Chi*ken Walden as our bass player so that Kev could return to guitar.

I moved to Japan in 1990 and shopped the band around Tokyo Music Companies, but discussions didn’t get far and the band dis-banded in 1991.

Later, in 2009, the Japanese band c.a.d.f. covered the song “Life Underwater” on our CD C’est La Vie

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