“Really? You are going to make all of our customers listen to your band’s EP?” That is the nice version on what I said to Quinn Allman. We worked at a miniature golf course in our hometown of Pleasant Grove, Utah. Quinn and I went to high school together and graduated from the same class. I don’t remember much about him other than the fact that he skated around and didn’t talk to very many people. Seemed like an outsider. Now he is the guitarist of The Used. During the time we worked together he and his live band were just getting started. Their non-produced music sounded awful to me and I wondered how it would ever become popular. It just goes to show what a live performance can do. The story as far as I know goes like this…John Feldmann of Goldfinger saw them perform, loved them and produced their first album. From what I can recall the music he played at work sounded nothing like what they play now. I like what they play now.
I reconnected with Quinn while his girlfriend and I worked together. No, not the miniature golf course. This time it was Media Play and it was over a year later. He gave me a pretty cold-shouldered hello that I deserved after telling him several months before how much I didn’t like his band’s music. A lot had changed since the mini golf job. I went to college and struggled mentally and emotionally. I practically failed out, moved back home and lost myself in rock & roll music. I purchased and listened to any music I could get my hands on, old, new and unheard of. I went to every local show that I could and went to my first Big Ass Show and Warped Tour.
I started to become that awkward person I always thought Quinn was and I realized how much he was an outsider in high school. He never let himself conform or accept things in his life because others told him to. He was Quinn and you accepted him or rejected him and whatever you chose didn’t affect him. He was real. Warped Tour is where I saw Quinn for the last time. This time he didn’t give me the cold shoulder. He saw that I had changed and I seemed a little more “real” to him. Watching them perform really lit something in me. I wanted to be on stage. I wanted to perform like I had no other care in the world. I wanted to be a rock & roll singer. When I got home that night I picked up that hairbrush and got to work.
