I'm going back to solo for awhile, if you're interested in being part of a backing for me just let me know. I'm thinking of mainly playing solo & if I get other musicians to play along that work well I'll add people. For now I'm solo again.
(sometimes Leon also plays bass/drums/keyboard/etc)
Influences
nirvana, pink floyd, the beatles, deftones, tom petty, beck, hawthorne heights, pearl jam, garth brooks, led zeppelin, smashing pumpkins, leon house, the cure, dashboard confessional, bush, foo fighters, dixie chicks, hole, the white stripes, the cars, silverchair, perfect circle, evan andjaron, rollins band, fish, the beta band, weezer, our lady peace, tad, semisonic, srv, stevie ray vaughan, alice in chains, nin, nine inch nails, aic, oasis, blood hound gang, nofx, staind, radiohead, sleater-kinney, murder the cat, hook and the daggers, liter meet, elliott smith, katie beers, punk, grunge, rock and roll, country, electronica, goth, rock, consolidaire, drum n bass, content 2 drown, c2d, safe and sane, bill skins fifth, post modern defect, dustin davis, faun fables, the kalikak family, ramona the pest, backyard, hot 'n' bothered, the conversation, soylint green, soilent green, locust street taxi, dork.com, just plain bill, ethan danial davidson, folk, incubus, outkast, young mc, vanilla ice, snoop doggy dogg, oh yeah and I forgot about them up until now: A-kamp...
Sounds Like
Nirvana, The Beatles, The Cure, Dashboard Confessional, Beck, Garth Brooks, Bush, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, The White Stripes, Alice In Chains (AIC), Nine Inch Nails, *more Sound Like artists to come...*
Newest News: Never fully went full time solo acoustic... Hopefully some time I'll get myself back into playing more often.
Leon House has been playing shows in various bands since around 98 and has played over 100 shows in Washington State.
Started writing when he was 6 years old, his first song was just him writing down things about him, "Yo, My name is Leon/I Want To Be A Basket ball player when I grow up/I want to go to Japan..." It began with Hi, until a friend told him , "Yo" was the word to use at the time.
From there he wrote a bunch of misc. things, mainly about girls he liked, war (most were completely unknowing to what was really happening in the world) but never had a guitar until he turned 13.
Once Leon turned 13 his sister Monica got a bf named Lee Spargur. Leon saw that Lee had a guitar, not a very great one, but it was one to start on. So Lee let Leon use it, taught him a few basic chords, "E/Emin/G" and maybe a few others. But most of the time he just played single notes. Leon then offered Lee $5 for the guitar, but Lee said, "The thing ain't even worth $5, I'll just give it to you". So with Leon's newly found guitar he wrote his first song with it entitled, "Jamie". It was about a girl he liked as so many songs have been since then.
Around the same time his best friend Mark was interested in the guitar, so Leon taught him how to play what he knew (which obviously wasn't much), and they started a band called, "Nirva~na". This came from a song by Nirvana. At the time Leon was very much into Nirvana. And from there began learning songs and Nirvana was the first choice of songs to learn. Lee was also into Nirvana and he would let Leon borrow the Nirvana Nevermind tab book and that's where Leon got started on learning his first songs.
About 2 years later there was a turning point that changed the way Leon listened to music for quite awhile. For Christmas it was either he was going to get, "Tim McGraw" or "Pearl Jam". When he got, "Pearl Jam : Vitalogy" Leon was highly into rock / grunge music and wouldn't listen to pretty much anything else (some rap & pop also). It stayed that way for years.
Around the time he turned 18, Leon started another band called, "Dead Hope Aisles (DHA)". It started out with a guitarist recruit from Winlock by the name of, "Aaron Green". Aaron Green was impressed by the first song they practiced, "Coward In A Hole". Leon had written both his guitar part and Aaron's guitar part. They played a few shows, mainly at The Matrix Coffee House in Chehalis. They went through a few line-up changes. A few of the various people in the band were, "Leon House (Vocals, Guitar), Ryan Carr (keyboard/vocals), Nick Asken (drums/guitar/keyboard), Fil Nontell (Drums), Jesse Roldan (keyboard), and others.
At one time Leon kicked everyone out of the Dead Hope Aisles (DHA) and started anew and kept the name (as he made it up, he felt fine using it still). But it never became what it once was. The reason he kicked everyone out was over someone hacking the website. A couple of the band members were mad at Leon for stage antics gone awry. So Ryan Carry called up Leon House and asked for the password for the website. The next time Ryan checked there was a lot of hateful things all over the site about Leon and a lot things on the site was messed up.
After that ordeal, Leon started a new band called, "Dean dork (Dd)". It started out as a solo project. And turned into something more once neighbor, "Derek Hemenway" decided he wanted to play backing drums for Leon's solo project. And he liked it enough to want to turn it into a full band. Dean dork started out with just Leon & Derek and escalated into an 8-piece band. That became to be way too much to deal with so Leon dropped most of the members. The various members were, "Leon House (Vocals/Guitar), Derek Hemenway (Drums/Vocals), Zac Bush (Bass), Richard Stevens (Keyboard), Jeremy Withrow (Bass), Brandy Stevens (Bass), Justin Sicard (Guitar/Bass), Phil King (guitar/bass), Jake McKnight (Guitar/Saxaphone), Aaron Green (Guitar), and others.
Once Leon sized down the band to a 5 piece: Leon House (Vocals/Guitar), Derek Hemenway (Drums), Zac Bush(Bass), Richard Stevens (Keyboard), Justin Sicard (Guitar/Bass). It started becoming much tighter. Leon's stage antics consisted of a bunch of things to catch attention: Wearing A Pink Poodle Dress & Lengerie & also misc. dresses. Also would make the band continue to play while he went out and asked the audience, "So, how do you like this band, do you think they're any good?" and etc.
Dean dork came to an end with the merge of 2 bands, "Wrong Over Rit (WOR)" & "Dean dork". Wrong Over Rit was mainly just Leon House (Vocals/Guitar), Justin Sicard (Guitar/Vocals), & Phil King (Bass Guitar). It was an acoustic project. What the whole idea was to do was to have Dean dork be the name of the band when it was electric and Wrong Over Rit when it was acoustic. As soon as this merger happened it seemed to only take another month before everything unraveled. There was an show (Egg Day) where WOR played first & then Dean dork played last. After Dd played Leon was left to pack all the instruments & PA by himself. So there was an argument about this and the band broke up over this. Plus the band not wanting to play the type of music Leon was belting out.
The Skip Tracers then became a band from the demise of Sky Pilot. They broke up and Ty & Jamez was looking to start another band (Ty & Jamez were high school friend and Leon really enjoyed their ex-band, "Sky Pilot"). So they talked about it and had an acoustic practice and things seemed to be going well. They played a few shows and things were going well, except when Leon wanted to have a part in the song writing process. Leon wanted the band to be where everyone put their input into the songs lyrics and Ty just wanted to mainly write them himself and give Leon like 1 song here and there. So Leon started writing and bugging Ty to play the songs. Ty then started feeling that Leon was trying to take over the band and had an argument and said, "Either you be just the bassist or you're out of the band". So Leon decided to just be the bassist. After that whole thing, it started going alright. Until one show where before it Leon was having a discussion with Ty telling him about how he didn't like people telling him to Shut up & during the show Ty did just that twice when Leon tried to be a part of the show just talking into a mic a little bit. So Leon bit his tongue until then end of the show and took off and quit the band.
For a few years Leon had been doing solo acoustic stuff, mainly at Open Mic at The Matrix Coffeee House in Chehalis and noticed playing solo acoustic is a lot easier than dealing with a full band. So since the bands broke up he's mainly played solo acoustic, a few ideas of a band has started since then, but nothing solid. "Fear Of Rejection" would have been the next band name. And was almost a band, but things didn't pan out.
Leon around 2000 started to realize that music shouldn't be liked based on genre started listening to everything, from Rock to Country to Classical to Rap to Jazz to Emo and etc. For awhile he thought listening to nothing was the way to make a more original sound, but now believes listening to everything is better for that. But at the same time believes nothing is truely original anymore.
In 2004-2005 Leon had been offered to play bass with a band called: Resevoir Dogs. It was supposed to be a one time deal to fill in for an ex-bassist. But they offered him the spot as the permanent bassist. So he stayed in the band for around 5 months and enjoyed playing with the guys. He was offered the ability to play a few of his own songs with the band and jammed on 5/7, but wasn't worried so much then, he just wanted to be the bassist and was liking it. But he started feeling like he wasn't accepted into the band as well as he should have been and Nick had moved to Olympia and Leon didn't drive so they had to find ways to get down to Winlock and pick him up. He started feeling like a burden so he quit the band. He wishes the band well and hopes things are going well for them as he doesn't have anything against them.
Leon has so far released, "Low Quality Sampler CD-R" (2002), which started out as a tape. Around 100 tapes were released. Then the CD were released and around 1,000 were put out./ "Dead Hope Aisles (DHA) (2003): Album Full Of Noise" was an album with nothing, but feedback, glasses breaking, screaming etc with a very small release of only about 50 CDs, but will eventually be put out there to more people, as Leon was surprised to find out a lot of people like that kind of thing. / "Temporary Insanity" (2004/2005), was made on a tape recorded w/ drummer, "Sean Olsen". Sean Olsen & Leon House almost started a band together, but it didn't pan out.
Leon is now putting together another demo together & hoepfully a new album. He now is working on going back to a full time solo acoustic musician.
(this bio will be editted and updated later for errors and to just add stuff to it)
I fell off the face of the world for a bit. But always thought of your music, It always helped me through, Thanks. Perhaps you don't remember but I will always remember the record store, you gave me a hug too. Your awesome.
I can't wait til you get home!! I get off early tomorrow baby!! We can spend lots and lots of time together...and will you sing for me on the porch swing???PPPLLLEEAASE?
So....baby....we have LOTS of planning to do.....I vote that tomorrow night we make lists and lists...okay? I will do allll of the writing, okay??YAY....I can't wait for 5-22-10!!!!!!!
Leon, how have you been...read your bio...sounds like you've been busy with the music. I've put up a few new tunes since we last talked...taking a listen to your tunes now, sounds good...stop and take a listen, Cliff Gundersen in Tacoma
