derek

About me:

I grew up just south of Sikeston, MO and graduated high school at New Madrid County Central in 1999. From there I spent the next five years at Southeast Missouri State University where I double majored in Business Management (Organizational Leadership) and Industrial/Organizational Psychology.

While in college I spent most my time away from school either bartending and managing at Willy Jak's/Nick's or playing lead guitar in my former band, Closure. After college I went to work for Pepsi MidAmerica for nearly two years as a territorial sales rep for the area of Cape Girardeau.

In December of 2005, I joined a new band called Promise to Burn, Immediately after joining we went into preproduction with producer, Malcolm Springer, on our first EP called And Everything After which was finished up in May of 2006.

In the next few months as we prepared for our first few live performances, I found out that my full-time career with Pepsi and my potential music career did not coexist so well, so I left Pepsi in July of 2006.

Since then my focus has been promoting my band Promise to Burn. In 2007 we had the opportunity to play some shows in Los Angeles where we headlined a show at the Viper Room on Sunset Blvd and played a label showcase at the Key Club. Both shows were successful for us, and we had a good turnout of major labels at our showcase. The reactions to our band by the industry insiders were very positive. To follow the progress of the band, just visit the Promise to Burn myspace here where you can hear/download our music and keep track of upcoming shows.

In addition to that, I am going back to school in the fall at SIU in Carbondale to finish my masters in Counseling Psychology.