The Bio of talo and the Story of The Foundation Chad Talo grew up in Garden City, Michigan. He's from a suburban middle-class family. He currenty teaches at a small private school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He's white, and he makes Christian rap music. Talo has been writing songs since he was a small boy. Never having any formal training or natural musical ability, for most of his life he would only write lyrics. Nothing he ever wrote really amounted to much until he wrote a song about feeling rejected by his peers called “Maybe Not.” which he first recorded with the band The Sons of Johnny Tuesday in 1996. In 1997 Chad's life took a major turn when he became a Christian. He set aside his love of music and pursued a role in the ministry. Unfortunately, his pursuits became selfish and misguided. He hurt many with his selfish ambition and arrogance, which were the fruit of his insecurity. He was easily caught up in the excitement of the moment and acted with zeal, but without knowledge. Chad had to see his selfish nature and overwhelming desire to be in the spotlight, and deal with these aspects of his character. To this day he continually wrestles with these things, as you hear in his lyrics. He had all but abandoned his music until 1999 when he met a young guitarist and fellow Eastern Michigan University student named Nathan McMurray. Chad wrote predominantly rap and pop-style songs. Nathan, on the other hand, was more influenced by hard rock and progressive metal. Nathan would humor Chad and set his songs to light guitar riffs. In 2000 Chad was introduced to a struggling photographer who had just traveled in his Geo Metro from Los Angeles to Ann Arbor, MI where he was living in his girlfriend's parents' basement. Chad's new friend was Ben Weatherston. After only a couple of weeks Ben and Chad were roommates. Not very much music was being made at that time. Chad began working with the youth ministry in their church and after a conversation with one of the teens he mentored, Chad realized he had work to do. The teen had shared his aspirations of using drugs, drunkenness and sexually immoral relationships. He told Chad that he wouldn't be coming back to church because he wanted to live like the musicians he looked up to. Chad was heartbroken as he dropped the teen off, never to see him again. How could kids be so negatively influenced by music? Could positive music have the same impact? Chad went home and waited for Ben. A couple nights earlier he heard Ben walking through the apartment reciting lyrics that he had just written. As Ben walked in, Chad told him of the nights events. Chad asked Ben to team up and start writing together. Chad told Ben about the work he had done with Nathan McMurray, and MayBeOne was born. Originally only four (Corey Hall being the fourth), MB1 had many incarnations. In the early days of MB1, the guys were teased and called Backstreet-Sync because of the heavy influence of pop music on Chad's writing. MayBeOne started off writing songs and recording in Chad's closet. In 2002, however, Martin Nazimek and Nate Sears were hired to play bass and drums. Chad and Nathan began working together on writing and producing. In June of 2002 MayBeOne finished Hated, their first CD. It was produced on a minimal budget by Chad, using cheap gear in a small garage converted into a studio space. Hated had little to no success, commercial or otherwise. It sold less than 300 copies. It did, on the other hand, teach Talo how not to record an album. By 2005 all the members of MayBeOne were either married or well on their way, with the exception of Talo. He was constantly trying to get the band back together. Then in September of 2005 he was able to get MayBeOne back together for one more show. This time he was the opening act. After a conversation with Ben, Talo realized that he had a lot of unused material. Ben encouraged him to put his energy into recording a solo album. For the album originally entitled My New House, Talo wrote such songs as Loser, Don't Thank Me and Will and Grace (which never made it on the album). Loser came about when one of Chad's students came to class wearing T-shirt that said Loser on the front, but the back had the scripture reference of Mathew 16:25 “Whoever wants to save is life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” From that point on Talo's students, knowing he was a Christian, would say, “Hey Talo, you're a loser.” The piano part was brought in after being written by Ramayan Saries of thesdeepwaters. Don't Thank Me was inspired by Bono. One year at an awards show, he made a comment about the musicians who accept awards and thank God. He shared that he believed a lot of the songs that God was being thanked for didn't come from Him. Bono said, “He's probably looking down saying, 'Don't thank me for that song.'” Ben's verse was originally written for a song called Causin' a Commotion. Once Talo heard the verse, he decided to scrap the song and start over, using the idea he got from the U2 front man. Talo wrote the female vocal parts and brought in Elizabeth Kolman, Nathan McMurray's wife Denise and Amber Nazimek to record. Amber's part was too legato, so it had to be cut. Most of the other songs on the CD that would eventually become The Foundation were strung together from random lyrics Talo had written in hopes to use in MayBeOne songs. He wrote hooks to pull those lyrics together. The song Goin' Thru The Motions was written as a full song to the instrumental you hear on The Foundation, mostly composed in Talo's car. The hook came to him after a conversation with artist Chris Stranad. As Talo told his good friend about the new song he was writing, Chris said, “Like you're going through the motions.” Talo wrote it down, and it became the catchy chorus you hear today. During that same conversation, Chris recommended that a female opera voice would really set off the the third verse. Martin Nazimek of MayBeOne had played the guitar part, and his wife Amber just happen to be an opera singer. There were originally 3 verses that were all written and performed by Talo. One day, though, while working in the studio, Talo's fellow rapper Gabriel Buckery (who Talo later nicknamed Buck Random) was hanging out in Talo's studio, the Sweat Shop. As Talo played the instrumental, Buck began reciting lyrics he had written to what he called the best beat Talo had created up to that point. After hearing the verse, Talo was humbled, but then insisted that his friend get in the recording booth right away. Talo scrapped the third verse he had written. It was a good thing, too. Gabe's verse is one of the best on The Foundation. Talo got in the booth to re-record his vocals immediately after Gabe. The booth had no ventilation and was very hot. That's how the first words of the song came to be. The “I'm sorry” came from Amber stopping and starting over and over until she got each part perfect to create the beautiful sound you hear in the third verse. Throughout the writing and recording process, Talo had been mentoring one of his students, Mike Cochran. Mike wrote poetry and loved hip hop. Chad offered to teach Mike to rap. Mike took the name Underdawg. One day, Talo was checking his voice mail and Underdawg had left him a message with a song idea. “We should write a song about the adulteress woman in Proverbs 5-7 and call it Desperate Housewives.” Over time, most of the cheap MIDI beats and samples were replaced with live instruments or higher quality samples. With the help of Holland Stewart, Mike Magner, Matt Douglas, and Sam Lowe, Talo was able to complete Reverse. This song was written about his experience being a musician, a teacher and a Christian, mostly as a part of MayBeOne. That's why this hip hop song has a line that says “They got rocked by some metal with some gospel lyrics.” Or Don't You Know? is introduced on the album by Nathan McMurray as he tells how the chorus came about. Ben's screams are accompanied by harmonies from Ramayan Saries. The guitars were recorded by Matt Majewski. Matt also appears on Don't Thank Me and Des'prit Housewives(which also features Dave McWilliam on the bass and vocals by Elizabeth Kolman.) After reading an article about Dr. Dre's recording process, Talo decided to implement more live cello into his instrumentals. He called on friend, Alex Berk to write and/or replace the existing string parts. Alex appears on Freedom, Only a Man and Every Day. Jazz Singer Sarah D'Angelo blessed Talo with an appearance on the song Every Day, along with Elizabeth Kolman(who wrote and sang the chorus to Freedom) and Mike Magner on the piano. Many of the songs, including Every Day, were recorded in a recording booth made of foam board, that had no fame. When Sarah recorded her vocals, she had to hold the front of the booth on because it had not yet been attached. Most of Talo's recording booth was made of leftovers he was given or found. If it weren't for a gift card for a local home improvement store from a good friend, the booth may not have even had a shell. Ramayan Saries had the idea to implement an acoustic guitar into the song Thorn in My Side, which Talo had written about the blessing and curse of writing lyrics. After hours of picking around on his guitar, Ramayan got it. “Dude, write this down, and don't lose it,” he said to talo as he finished the guitar part. Unfortunately, that written guitar part has never re-surfaced. Mr. Saries also sang on the chorus. One thing most people don't realize is that the bass line is hummed by Buck. As The Foundation was finally taking shape, talo had begun writing with and producing a rapper from Dayton, OH known as Gravity Tha MC. Gravity had little to no formal studio experience, but had written a slew of songs that he eagerly wanted to record. While in Ann Arbor to start work on his first CD, talo asked Gravity to re-record the hook on a song that was in danger of being cut from The Foundation. That day talo and Gravity put the finishing touches on the song Convinced. The songs were done, but talo had come across so many talented rappers while finishing the album that he was discouraged that he couldn't put CST, BIG CITY, Professa and Scout Da Psalmist on the album. He came up with the idea to have them call in submissions and leave them on his voice mail. The recording was done. Mixing started, and stopped, and started again, and stopped. Matt Majewski and Ramayan Saries were called in to finish the mixing process. Matt did all the rough mixing, talo did the fine tuning and Saries was responsible for quality control. This sent these three men back into the studio numerous times before they would all three deem the project ready for mastering. Now, after over four years of recording and 11 years of writing, this collaborative effort has finally been released. Only God knows where it goes from here. We have only laid THE FOUNDATION.