Some people were born to be on stage. Some people were made to have their name in lights. Some people were born incredibly attractive. Some people can't help but be rock stars. Some people read. Andy is not any of those people. 

Ok - I am sick of pretending like I hired someone else to write about me. I am way too cheap and disorganized for that. I am writing about myself so I will no longer talk about myself in the third person. I was born in Austin, TX and grew up on a little farm Northeast of town. I started playing piano when I was around 3 years old. When I was in Junior High - I decided to quit music and devote myself towards training to play in the NBA. This involved walking around in those weird looking strength shoes that supposedly make you jump higher. In the process, I had very strong legs but was still a "piano player" at heart and was too wussy to actually lift weights so my arms were as buff as the ones you put in Mr. Potato Head. 

Anyways - somewhere in my high school basketball career I had a realization. 6'1" was as tall as I was going to get. No matter how high I could jump, my hand was too small to palm the ball and dunk it with authority. I wasn't as good as I thought I was. Right around that same time I happened to be at a Garth Brooks concert (back then I only listened to country music) and he called my little brother up from the audience and gave him his guitar. Pretty random. To make a long story short - I ended up learning how to play on that guitar and it changed my life. I finally took those strength shoes off and spent all my free time playing guitar. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I didn't just have to cover every country song known to man - I could write my own songs. So I started with a horrible song called "Me, Myself and I". Probably the most depressing song you could ever hear. Typical teenage angst. Many songs later, I actually had some stuff that I kind of enjoyed. 

I went to College at Belmont University in Nashville to be close to the country music scene. This was the town where all of the real songwriters lived – and I wanted to be one. So did 3500 other students at Belmont. Big surprise. Four years later somehow I graduated, got married, finished my first CD “Old Hat” and started my career in music. That career was writing songs for Word Publishing and playing guitar for my wife, Jill Phillips. 

Around the time we had our second child in 2004, I recorded a CD called "Room to Breathe" and began playing some of my own shows again - while still traveling with Jill and another singer-songwriter, Andrew Peterson. Since then I have released a few more records of my own ("Reinventing The Wheel", "The Law of Gravity" and "Christmas"), produced some records for other people, and have played many shows and house concerts along the way. 

If I was still talking in third person, now would be the time to mention all of my accomplishments like writing songs for other people's records, being a Kerrville New Folk Winner in 2010, scoring many hole-in-ones in disc golf, collaborating with many great musicians/songwriters/artists, fathering three of the best kids in the universe, being a finalist and runner-up at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest in 2009 and bowling over 200 multiple times. But I am not going to mention those things because that is just not the kind of guy I am. 

If you want to really know about me, just listen to the music. I hope you like it. And if you do, I hope you tell your friends about it or have me out for a house concert or something. If you don't like it, I hope you either don't tell your friends that, or that you will lie to your friends and tell them you like it.

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