It's hard to say when we got started, but we've come quite a ways since our humble beginnings. I guess I was about 19, which would've made it 1996 or so. I got my first guitar a year or so earlier, and started to get together once a week with my brother Chris and Eric Medley to "play some music". Back then, we couldn't play much of anything. We could barely make a G, C, and D chord. But we had guitars, and chords to a bunch of dead tunes, and lots of beer, so we were set. We were just having a good time anyway.

That went on for a year or so I'd say, and we gradually learned more chords, and became more comfortable in our playing, even if it was still pretty bad. As you may know, the Dead played quite a few traditional and bluegrass tunes, and we started to try to play some of those. I remember that Chris and I couldn't figure out how to get the rhythm right at all. Eric, who had a mandolin and had played a while back in a bluegrass band, showed us the basic bluegrass "boom chuck" rhythm, and we were off and running.
Slowly, we started playing more bluegrass tunes. We had a book with 50 or so bluegrass tunes in it, and we started learning more and more of those. Mostly, we picked new bluegrass songs to play cause they were easier. Most only have 3 chords, and we could play the rhythm to them pretty easy. Eric started playing his mandolin more and more, until by about 1999 he pretty much quit bringing the guitar to practice.

For the next couple years, from about 1998 to around 2000, we just kept playing, and getting more and more into bluegrass music. We'd go to festivals, lots of festivals, and just kept learning, and started to feel pretty good about our playing. During this time, we'd often play with people (especially an old banjo player named Tom) who were A LOT better than us, and they'd teach us new things and show us the ropes. We'd always get questions from friends about our playing, and they'd ask when they would get to hear us. Every now and then we'd talk about playing at a party or something, but we always said we'd wait until we were really good first. We got hooked up with a guy named Tom who played banjo, and he started playing with us regularly. He was a great guy, but he didn't like the prospect of playing in front of a crowd, and so we parted ways.

Soon, we got hooked up with a banjo player named Glen. He was REAL good. He claimed to have spent some time as a working musician at Opryland, playing on stage at various shows and such. Glen was a bit of an a-hole (pardon my french), but he was really good, and taught us a lot. We got a lot better from playing with him. He taught us the beginnings of how to sing harmony parts, and helped us to get tighter and more coherent as a band. We practiced a lot, and really got better. We finally got up the nerve to even play a few songs here and there at various Christmas and 4th of July parties, etc. Chris's friends all called him by his nickname, Barleycorn, and so they naturally called me Bradleycorn. When we got our guitars at one party, one of his friends, Steven, refferd to us as The Corn Brothers.

Not too far down the road, in about 2001 or so, Glen talked us into playing a full fledged show for our family and friends. We called up to the Twice Told coffee shop, a local hole in the wall where they'd have poetry readings and small shows and such. We rented out the back room and called all our friends and family. Glen knew a bass player, who agreed to play the show with us. We needed a name, and no one could think of one, so we just went with Corn Brothers. It kind of stuck, and so that's what we went with from then on. Boy I remember standing out back before that first show started, being as nervous as can be. We tried to drink a few beers to calm the nerves, but it was no use.

Success! While any recording (thankfully one doesn't exist that I'm aware of) of that show would reveal how terrible we were at that point, we really had a lot of fun, and everyone in the crowd seemed to enjoy it. We had that taste of being on stage and we loved it! I don't think it took long to decide to do it again, but we had to find somewhere willing to have us. We finally landed a gig at the BBC on I think a thursday night. The BBC had just started having a bluegrass jam on Wednesdays, so it was a natural place to have a bluegrass show. At one of the jams, we met up with a lady named Nan who was learning to play bass, and she started playing with us regularly. Sometime during this period, we really had enough of Glen's attitude, and quit playing with him. He was quickly replaced by an older guy named Gary. Gary was learning to play banjo, and was right about at our level, so he was a good fit, and we kept on truckin. We played several shows over the next year or so at the BBC. Gary's wife was from down in Loretto, KY, near Makers Mark, and they would frequent a place down there called the Cozy Corner. He lined us up a gig there, and so we headed down to play, and had a great time. We went back to "The Cozy" several times after that, and always had a great time.

My uncle Donnie joined us, during this time, playing dobro. Donnie has been playing bluegrass since before I was born. Back in the 70's and 80's he was in a band in Hawaii and they'd play shows 6 nights a week. He's a pilot based out of Texas, so he'd just fly in for shows, and fly back out the next day. As we started playing shows, we had to start using PA equipment, and we were NOT good at setting it up. It was a problem we would struggle with for years. I became the defacto sound man, and we experimented with all kinds of mics and other equipment to try and get good sound. At some point, Gary left the band. He was wanting to maintain a more folky, traditional sound, while we felt like we were getting better, and wanted to play faster, newgrass type tunes like you'd hear Tony Rice or Del McCoury playing. At one of the Wednesday jams, we convinced John Stewart, a banjo player, to try playing with us. At first he wasn't a big fan of being in a band, but quickly he warmed to it. John could play fast and clean, and allowed us to really expand our repetoire. We kept playing and practicing. We spent a lot of time learning how to sing harmonies, and really cleaned up our sound even more.

By 2004, we had outgrown Nan, and she left the band, leaving us with a hole in the bass slot. A band is not a band without a bass player, and we searched long and hard to find a replacement. Finally, a local fella named Blue agreed to come on board. Blue was a VERY good bass player, and had aspirations of making a living playing bass. Blue really pushed us to get better. He was also a pretty good sound man, and helped us get our PA issues cleaned up. We started work on recording a CD, which required a lot of discipline, and though we hated the process, it made us get better. We never did finish it though. Blue also pushed us to play out more, which we took to at first. By now, we were playing at Clifton's Pizza on Frankfort Ave, and we'd schedule at least one gig each month. In addition to being pushed by Blue, John encouraged us to include some more progressive songs in our repetoire. John liked playing fast, and was not a fan of songs that were slow, or just not very interesting musically. We started to add a rock n roll song here or there. We chose songs that would work as bluegrass songs, or songs that other bands had done in a bluegrass style already.

Through 2005 and into early 2006, we were playing at Clifton's A LOT. We had quite a list of songs to play, and really weren't half bad. But being in the band started to feel a lot more like work, and a lot less like something we'd do for fun. Practices were tense, as some of us were wanting to take the band in a more progressive direction, and others wanted to go back to a more traditional bluegrass sound. A few guys had started families along the way, and being able to commit more and more time to a band was causing more and more stress. Finally, things unraveled leading up to a show in Feb. of 2006. Just before the show, Chris decided to quit the band. His wife was getting ready to have their 3rd child, and while we were getting more progressive and more serious. He was wanting to just play traditional bluegrass as a hobby. At the same time, Blue, who was recently married, decided that we weren't serious enough, and left to join another band. With only myself, John, and Eric left, we decided that we needed a break. So for the final 10 months of 2006, we did just that. No practice. No shows, no nothing. And it was great.

We started getting together again early in 2007. Chris decided to join us, and we all agreed that we weren't going to take it seriously. We'd get together when we could, and just have fun with it. And it was fun again. A friend of ours, Dave Buszkiewicz agreed to come on board playing bass. He had an electric bass, and that seemed right up our alley, since we were starting to play more progressive songs. We practiced throughout the summer, and scheduled a September show at Cliftons. However, in getting ready for the show, Chris again left. With a large family at home, he just didn't have the time to put in. Also factoring into his decision, was the fact that we had been playing a lot more progressive songs. We had several outright rock n roll songs in our setlist. And while we loved them, he was still longing for that traditional bluegrass sound. It felt good to get back up there on stage again and play a live show, and we had a great time!

Early this year, we started talking a lot about how we had to be very selective of the songs we chose to play because many just didn't work without drums. Finally, around march, we decided to bite the bullet, and brought my buddy Garrett McAlister on board to play drums. Since then, we've really changed the sound of the band. I'm now playing electric guitar, and everyone else is plugged in. We really only have a few true bluegrass songs left in the line up. We've got several rock n roll tunes that we do in a bluegrass style, and many others we do in a range of styles from reggae to honky tonk to funky to spaced out. We play all kinds of stuff, and don't really care what type of tune it is, as long as we have fun playing it, and it doesn't sound too bad. The main thing is that we are having a blast. We have a great time when we get together to practice, and we look forward to getting a setlist together and scheduling yet another show. That may have to wait awhile since my wife just had our first child in July, and Garrett is training to compete in his first Iron man triathalon in August. But this fall, we'll get back to work, and hopefully be able to show off our new sound sometime late this year.