biography
The farthest that Ace had ever traveled in his young life occured before he could even remember it. Born in Kodiak, Alaska while his father was stationed at the Coast Guard base there he knows very little about that time. Most of the stories he has to tell are ones that were recounted to him enough as a child that he adopted them as memories of his own. His memories begin about the time his father was tranferred to Baton Rouge, Louisiana when he was age six. As conservative Catholics, Ace was enrolled in catholic school from the age of kindergarten and the entire family took part in singing in the church choir on Sunday.

In school, Ace never really had a social group to call his own. He didn't sit at any particular lunch table of Mean Girl definition, but he wasn't entirely shunned by his peers either. Ace was instead found somewhere there was shade outside, forever with his head inside his marble notebook and his pencil moving. He'd write poetry, short stories, sketch out the things around him and create little cartoons and world of his own. It wasn't until high school that his interests began to expand beyond the church in any major way. Falling into a group of 'bad' kids ate the age of thirteen, it was then that Ace had his first drink of alcohol, smoked his first cigarette and blunt, and recieved his first stick and poke tattoo. The later of which would become an obsession in his life.

It was also in high school that Ace began thinking of singing as a more secular activity, fronting a string of bad to worse bands who considered being able to tune their instruments to be an accomplishment. At the age of sixteen, having been dumped on his doorstep by well intentioned but equally stoned friends after playing a house party, that his mother noticed the ten plus homemade tattoos that dotted the chest and thighs of her son. This was the final straw in the list of ungodly behaviors that led Ace to be living with his friends and couch surfing for the rest of his junior year.

It was only a few months until Ace, the prodigal son, was welcomed back home and although there was no undoing the tattoos, he cleaned up his act for his senior year which was enough to make his parents worry about his immortal soul just a little bit less. Though his future was highly uncertain there were two things that he was entirely sure of. The clergy and the military were not any sort of life he saw for himself nor was any real nine to five occupation. He knew he wanted to be a poet, or a musician, or he figured maybe a tattoo artist. It was a promise to himself that he made permanent when he tattooed his knuckles, knowing that now a professional business life was probably out of his future. The gesture went about as well as could be expected with his parents, but it didn't even matter. Before they could throw him out once more he was moving into a small apartment with three other guys and making music that for once actually sounded pretty damn good.

The band, then a four piece with Ace as their lead singer, scrimped and saved and took part time jobs in order to finance their first cd recorded mostly in acoustically decent closets on garage band. The lyrics were mostly just exceprts from the poems he had written and the band could more or less play their instruments and slowly word seemed to get around. Recruiting a high school friend, perhaps the smartest thing the boys did was to make sure that every show was available on youtube and it didn't take long before fans were coming up to him from Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and it seemed just about every where in the South to see them in person themselves.

The second album was the first time the boys could afford to rent out a professional recording studio and the demand, at least on the small local scale, was absolutely overwhelming. Each dive bar they played they would sell out and for the first time being able to make a living playing music finally seemed within reach. The band went through a couple more Desntiny's Child-esque roster changes before it was down to just Ace and Josh but undaunted they both knew there was something special happening here. A list was made of favorite artists and emails were sent to managers, to record labels, to anyone and everyone associated with these bands asking if they would mind listening to their cd. Some days it seemed almost impossible until he looked down at his tattooed fingers, his arms, and remembered there was no turning back now.

All of the hustling was not in vain as the boys were signed to Fueled By Ramen who had been impressed with the musicality and performance of the duo's second album, and it wasn't long after that the boys released their third album and their first major label release. Vessel was critically praised though the band largely went ignored until they landed a spot as the opening act for arguably the largest band on the FBR roster, Fall Out Boy. It was then that the album finally began to pick up steam and the duo finally believed they were well on their way. This year, the album Blurryface has recieved favorable critics review once more but to date has also become their most popular album, garnering both the best critics reviews for the band thus far and placing higher on the charts upon it's release.