PEAK Performance Project Boot Camp, Day 1, Friday August 27th

We arrived here early with our dear friend, Vince Vaccaro. I want to say around noon-ish but I feel like it was much before that, I can’t remember these things. We had driven from Victoria to Hope the night before and stayed in a cheap motel, naturally, wishing we were on tour together. Instead, we entered RockRidge Canyon, wide-eyed, not knowing what to expect, full of excitement and wonder, anticipating the event about to take place for the next 7 days… and, not going to lie here, at all, it was going to be hard and we were mostly nervous as hell. I mean, when we thought about it, our band, Acres of Lions, has been doing this for awhile now, viciously touring, recording and writing silly songs, local gigging (yup, gigging), releasing an album, learning how to be a better band by advice from trained professionals we would run into from time to time, trial and error, and getting into situations we thought we would know how to handle, but the truth is, until we got here, received our rather busy schedule and basically, were shown how the PEAK Performance Project had laid out our vigorous music industry “training” for the week, we thought otherwise. The next 7 days would be very much like school, class after class instructed by industry professionals, and since none of us here in Acres of Lions Inc. really paid attention in class when we were growing up, it was time for us to be those attentive little boys in a big school and retain the free, useful knowledge that was going to be delivered to us daily.

Later that day, we were shown to our cabin, and to our surprise, we had been grouped together with Vince, and our good friend Christopher Arruda, who is absolutely fantastic in every way possible. As expected, a jam, not sure in what style, but a jam nonetheless, broke out in the bathroom, involving, Vince, Christopher (The Rudes) and I. Tyson and Lewis later joined in, and we settled on a name, “Young Leaf,” in the spirit of the purpose of this project and how we, the PEAK performers, are learning to how to grow up and shape our careers. With this much creativity flowing from us in one night, I can’t imagine what we’ll get into the rest of the week. I love my mountain men and my cabin.

Stay tuned, friends! Lots more excitement to come!