Biography

I met Laurie Pickard at "The Fire", a bar and local venue, in Philadelphia about two and a half years ago. I was just starting to get into folk music, listening to a lot of Woody Guthrie, so I bought an acoustic guitar and wrote some songs. There I was with my $150 acoustic guitar and some very young folk songs, hanging out and waiting to perform at the open mic, getting a little too drunk to perform well, when I heard Laurie sing. At that moment I knew I wanted to play music with her.
So I approached her after the open mic and convinced her to try playing some songs with me. The first time we met to play together, Laurie gave me some Hank Wiliams recordings, and it was all over. I had been bitten by the country music bug.
Two years later we are still playing music together...and living together. We recorded our first EP with Brian McTear (B.C. Camplight, Mazarin, Matt Pond P.A.) in 2005, and received a fair amount of radio play and a handful of good reviews. Our first full length album, "All Around This Town", was recorded partially in our home studio and partially in the studio of Brian McTear. It's available for free on the web, if you'd like to go get it. www.thefencebells.com. We play our music because we love it, and we're giving it away because we want you to love it too.