I was born in western Oklahoma and was raised in the small (and by small I mean 300 people maybe) town of Fargo, just west of Woodward, Oklahoma. I have three older sisters and luckily both of my parents. All six of us lived on a small farm and ranch north of town. For all of you city people, yes I had horses, and no I did not ride them to school. We had cattle, chickens, and all of us had show animals such as sheep, pigs, or heifers. I was typical country boy, driving trucks and tractors, working cattle, and yes, even listening to country music. After eighth grade, all of my sisters were in college or already out of college, and my mom decided that we were going to move to Pawnee,Oklahoma, to be closer to the grandkids. Pawnee was a big switch for me, the school was bigger, there was more racial diversity, and I had never had to make new friends before. My new house was in town too. Country to city living takes a little getting used to, but I never really missed all the work of the farm, although I do feel I learned some valuable lessons.

I started playing summer basketball and visited the First Baptist Church. Most of my teammates on the b-ball team were in my sunday school class. Naturally I kept going. I became active in the youth group at Pawnee FBC and I made a lot of friends at school too. My sophomore year I was elected president of FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes). That kind of responsibility was tough for 15 year-old kid who was really just beginning to grow in his faith. Even though I accepted Christ when I was pretty young, I realized that there was a lot that I didn't know. I found myself digging in the bible to find the answers. The more I dug, the more I learned, and I hope that I was a better example.

After my sophomore year, my youth minister asked me if I wanted to go to this summer camp called Super Summer. It was supposed to be a christian leadership camp and he thought that I should go. I had some trouble getting off work for that week because my boss (a construction contractor) had just put us to work on a new house. But, I did get off and I went to Super Summer. It was great and I met some really awesome people, but the significance came on the way home. The only other guy that went from my church (a college freshman) said that he wanted to start a praise band in our youth group. Although I couldn't play anything, I wanted in. The next week, my friend told me he was selling his guitar. He asked me if I wanted to buy it for $260. I was interested, and at the end of the week, my pay check was exactly $260. I bought it! The band was mostly older guys, and they didn't need a guitar player. They did however need a bass. So I started taking bass lessons (from Nick Wheeler of The All-American Rejects) and they let me in. We called ourselves Brown Bag Special, because that is what we ate before our first time we played at mid-week. You know, from Sonic. When school took back up, the band was reduced to Jordan Smith, a high school senior, and myself, a junior.

My friend Greg had a guitar also, but neither of us could play, so we stayed up all night at his house until we learned our first song. It was "Jesus, Lover of My Soul", and after we played it through one time, I knew we had to start a band. It wasn't until the next summer that we actually found all the people we needed for the band. My best friend Ryan learned to play the drums, our friend Traci could play keyboard, Greg's younger brother took up the bass, Greg played lead guitar, and after a few more lessons from Nick Wheeler, I played rhythm guitar. Now all we needed was a singer. We asked everyone that we knew if they could sing or would be interested in trying, but we found that nobody wanted to. One day, after telling my friend Daniel of our dilemma, he stated that he could sing a little. I begged him to come, I don't think he wanted to, but he came anyway. After he sang the first line of the first verse, I was sold, he was our man.

A little over a month from when we became a band, we got our first gig. It wasn't much, but we were pumped. We played at Pawnee Lake on a hay wagon in front of about 75 or 80 people, most of whom were related to us, but it was a start. Whether we really did good or not, everyone told us that it was great. We went on to do other local youth events around Pawnee, the largest of which being the intermission entertainment at the local Bruin Queen contest in the high school auditorium in front of about 200 people (I honestly have no idea how many people were there, I was pretty nervous and just looked at my guitar most of the show, the lights were on us so we couldn't see the crowd anyway). In the summer of 2002, after most of us graduated, the band was already dwindling. Ryan was off the the United States Naval academy, so, no drummer. Traci slowly kind of quit playing with us, so, no keyboard player. We couldn't play anyplace without a drummer, so we were stuck. At Falls Creek (the world's largest youth camp in southern Oklahoma) that summer, we met a guy from another school that happened to play the drums. We let him practice with us at Falls Creek and by the end of the week he was playing with us. Only weeks after that, we were "drummerless" again. I kinda got into the flow of writing songs, but I never could get one that I really liked. Eventually I wrote a few and played them with the other guys and we decided to play them when we opened for Less Than Greater Than at the annual See You At The Pole rally in Cushing, Oklahoma. Less Than Greater Than's drummer was kind enough to play with us and might I say that it was my favorite gig ever. Around 500 high school kids from around the area in an auditorium cheering or singing along, I loved it. We played some more local things in Pawnee, still playing musical drummers, and then Jonathan, out bassist, decided to quit. Drummerless, bassless, hopeless? No way, I met a couple of guys at college that were in a band called Awaiting Isaac. Their lead singer had just quit so they didn't have any obligations to a band anymore. Wouldn't you know it, a drummer and a bassist. July of 2003, we met a drummer named Preston White. I wish I could explain what it sounded like to hear him play for the first time. Just like with Daniel, I knew that he was our drummer. We still switch bassist alot, but I trust that God will give us exactly what we need when we need it, he has so far, why stop trusting him now?

I hope that God has a plan for our band and I pray that we will make ourselves available to be used by Him. I want to thank my parents for supporting me, my youth minister Mike Keahbone for letting us use the church to practice and for booking us events, and Joey Culver for thinking up the name PrePaidPostage. I also want to thank Kyle Thomas for helping us with a lot of technical things and for helping us get started towards a recording.

May God grant you wisdom and direction,

Taylor