Recovered photos: 2004 to 2008

About three years ago I had a massive computer crash, and the greatest casualty was my iPhoto. Spanning the time between 2004 to 2008, every single photograph I had ever taken was gone in an instant. It was devastating.

The time that these photos were taken was an incredibly unique and exciting time in my life, my band was signed to Warner Brothers, I worked with many of my childhood idols, and I saw the world. More importantly, I was losing the photos and memories with my family, or pictures of my dog Gizmo who died last year, or of my first meetings with people who would later go on to become close friends.

I had a photo backup, but in an unfortunate turn of events, that drive crashed about a month earlier and could not be recovered. I eventually let it go, but if you’ve ever wondered why I try to stay so consistent with documenting my memories online, this is it.

Yesterday, however, I was going through my trove of external hard-drives in search of an old recording and I stumbled upon a hidden folder. I honestly cannot understand how this happened, but all of these years later I have discovered a backup of my photos. Every single one (As far as I can tell). Needless to say I am pretty happy about this, so I figured I would go through and post some of the more interesting or memorable pictures in celebration. Here are 25 of my favorites.

(By the way, if anybody in these thinks they look bad and wants me to take them down just shoot me a message)

February 9th, 2004 - Taken right before Idiot Pilot’s show at EMP, which was essentially the catalyst for us generating label interest. It was for a “Battle of the Bands” type competition. Funny in retrospect, because we got 3rd.

May 5th, 2004 - Warner Brothers fly us down to Los Angeles for a signing party. They even made us a cake. Lots of really great people in that office. I had just turned 18, which was a big deal because before then I would have needed a parent sign the contract with me.

May 1st, 2004 - They also took us to Coachella. Radiohead, The Pixies, and The Cure all headlined that year. Still the best lineup, in my opinion.

June 26th, 2004 - With Ryan, our manager. We spent most of our time having meetings over bowling.

November 6th, 2004 - In Barcelona, Spain with Emily.

October 15th, 2004 - Met James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins at our first show in New York. Great show, but New York is a pain in the ass if you want to fly in for just one gig.

March 3rd, 2005 - Happy birthday to me. I like to get creative with my cake.

March 16th, 2005 - Played South by Southwest for the first time, and did my first interview with MTV. This was for Idiot Pilot’s episode of You Hear It First.

March 25th, 2005 - Soundcheck on the Taste of Chaos tour. We played this tour twice, first with The Used and My Chemical Romance, and then again in 2008 with Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu.

July, 28th 2005 - Photo with Rob Crow from Pinback on the Team Sleep tour. Fantastic band with a whole bunch of interesting members. Chino Moreno on vocals, Zach Hill from Hella on drums. We hit the US and UK. I made friends on that tour that I still have to this day.

September, 27th 2005 - Idiot Pilot’s first headlining tour of the UK. I am pretty sure this is in Liverpool. Had to get a photo of the giant poster outside.

June 8th, 2006 - There was a time when I liked to make really giant paintings. Me and Kanita had an art show and this is a painting I did of her and Jenn. It still hangs in my apartment in LA.

Nov 21st, 2005 - I love this picture of my dad and my old dog Gizmo. Waiting in line in the freezing cold for an Xbox 360 on launch night.

August 4th, 2006 - Doing pre-production on the second album with Mark Hoppus from Blink-182.

August 14th, 2006 - Tracking guitar at Robinson’s house in Venice. Amazing producer, went on to become one of my favorite dude’s ever. This was taken at the beginning of a year long stay in LA on Venice Beach, working on Wolves by Idiot Pilot.

August 26th, 2006 - Another photo from the making of Wolves. Robinson and Chris Pennie tracking drums. At the time, Chris was in the band Dillinger Escape Plan. He’s wearing a headband to keep the phones from falling off while rocking out.

October 19th, 2006 - Halloween in Venice Beach. Robinson recorded the first two Slipknot records, so I decided to buy nine pumpkins and carve him one for every member of the band. They lasted about a day in the California heat.

March 17th, 2007 - “Club kid” themed birthday party. I still love my costume.

August 3rd, 2007 - Talking to our director Adam during the making of our second official music video. Being huge David Lynch fans, we based the imagery on Twin Peaks. (Abiel Hoff was behind the camera on this photo.)

August 4th, 2007 - Another behind the scenes shot from the music video.

August 10th, 2007 - Gizmo and Bently, two dog best friends lounging in our cabin on Orcas Island. Gizmo has since passed on, Bently is still cruising around being weird. (Also, this was in my iPhoto but I am fairly certain that Karl Peterson took the shot)

October 3rd, 2007 - The Idiot Pilot touring party. Shot by Stefanie Warmouth out somewhere in the midwest.

February 22nd, 2008 - Friends out to dinner. 80% of the people in this photo have moved away from Bellingham. Crazy how times change. (I was trying to figure out why my brother isn’t in this, but I think that he took it.)

April 10th, 2008 - Norma Jean and Chino Moreno hitting the tennis ball around on Venice Beach.

July 4th, 2008 - Some of my favorite people in the world sitting on a log on the 4th of July. This is in front of the house where I grew up, and lived for many years, in Bellingham, Washington.

I know it seems like a lot, but that is the very, very narrowed down version of all the photos I wanted to share. If I could, I would include my favorite memory with every one of my friends, but there is only so much time in the day, and only so much space on this blog. Thanks for the stroll down memory lane, I love you all, pictured or otherwise.