THE BETTER THAN ANDY STORY - coming soon to Lifetime
It all began, really, long before the band members were ever together in one place. It all started when a little drummer boy named Cory moved to Maine and then two years later Josiah moved nearby; though it would be some time before the two met.First Josiah had to get a guitar. Which he did. And he formed a band with his friends. First he found a fellow guitarist who shared his enthusiasm and musical taste named Mike. Then the found a common friend named Kevin who they could force to learn the drums. He did so and thus a band was formed. They had everything they needed, except a bass player. The following Christmas Pat got a bass which he learned so he could be in the band. Mike eventually quit the band... Many times. So they found a replacement named Ben. He couldn’t play chords, but he was a quick learner and fun to hang out with, so they initiated him into the band. Ben moved away however so they were once more left with only one guitar. They turned Ryan who not only played chords, but had several guitars. Throughout the various guitarists they wrote many half completed instrumental songs. They never stuck with a name for long, but the last name they had and are universally remembered as was Batmobile Supreme.Meanwhile, another band was forming, a band called Swift Kick. One day Chris said to his friends, “Hey, I just got a bass*” to which Casey replied, “Hey, I want to play guitar.*” Cory said, “I’m a hell of a lot better than all of you.*” Neither Casey or Chris were very good so they just hung out and messed around with Blink-182 songs. Then a girl named Nora moved to the area. Chris talked her into coming to play guitar with them, which she did. She was better than Casey and had her own guitar so they let her in the band. Next they went searching for a singer. They found Jake and forced him to sing. They quickly discovered that Jake couldn’t sing. So they found Erik. Casey left the band because he felt he wasn’t really good enough.Around this time Chris asked Josiah to come and play guitar with Swift Kick as a special guest. Nora hated him because she felt like he was intruding on her band and maybe there to replace her, but she stayed in the band anyway. Batmobile Supreme fell apart because of jealously over Josiah playing in Swift Kick and the fact that the band wasn’t really going anywhere. So Josiah joined Swift Kick full time and they started playing shows. They adapted little set of riffs and a progression that Josiah had written for Batmobile Supreme, put words over it and had their very own song.Swift Kick wouldn’t last though. Chris, Cory, and Josiah started conspiring. They didn’t much care for Erik’s off key singing, and some of them had personal issues with him. Josiah had been getting into bands like Saetia so they went with an idea of his to start a screamo-esque band rather than kick Erik out of Swift kick. They also decided Nora’s guitaring wouldn’t fit in this new band, so they went ahead and disbanded Swift Kick and started anew.Thus Better Than Andy was born. At first it was the same as Swift Kick because they didn’t have time to learn new songs that Josiah could sing before they started playing shows so they had Erik come back to fill in. But eventually they started playing new songs, and recruited Ryan to play lead guitar so Josiah could focus more on singing. Ryan decided to play guitar with a church group and quit the band before he ever played with them. Better Than Andy resumed their search for a lead guitarist but continued playing shows and learning songs in the meantime. They worked especially on their live performance, determined to have the highest energy out of any band in the area.Kevin began begging the band to let him in because he missed being in a band. They obliged and hired him as “custom percussionist.” They also brought in Pat to play the keytar, and Casey to play guitar. The original three realized that the second drum set and keytar didn’t really work with the band so they decided to move Kevin and Pat over to a side project ska band, which they quit anyway. Then one day they realized, holy crap, Nora sings like an angel. So they snatched her back up and gave her Chris’s mic. She’d gotten over her hatred of Josiah and realized he never hated her back. She made the band sound a lot better, practices more fun, and the mic a less lonely place for Josiah. Shortly after joining the band however, Nora discovered that she had to move sixteen hundred miles away. She sang at one last show and left soon after.Better Than Andy is now back to four members. They’re working on original material and playing shows whenever the opportunity arises. To be continued....
