• I was a teenager i loved music, i loved it since as long as i could remember, but not until my later years did i truly get into it. My parents divorced when i was twelve and i had to have something to keep me from thinking about it. That's when i picked up my first guitar from my uncle Chuck. He showed me some simple things about it and it really inspired me so i bought a chord book to learn in my spare time. Year after year went by and the depression of my parents break up soon left me, but i still wanted to play, and that year at my eighth grade middle school talent show i entered and played what my friends thought of as "A Deep And Heavy Vibe Of Rhythm And Tone". My dad was very proud of me he even bought me my first Les Paul and i practiced more riffs from songs by some bands like Guns N Roses, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and a lot of others. When high school began i met a lot of new people that played things like trumpet and all that pep band stuff, but i was planning to do something i thought i wouldn't ever be able to do.......Form a band. After seeing what my school had to offer for members i looked out of school to find the first. Nathan Groves our drummer. He was pretty good on the drums he could do some beats here and there but it needed work and i knew i was the one to help. If you had to describe Nathan in one word that word would be HEAD BANG! Because that was most of the kind of music he listened to. And i was okay with it besides what can you possibly do to injure yourself while head banging???Around two months later i met with a guy named Julion Mcgrew and he could play base like a you know what! He was extremely tall and thin, and i knew he would make a great addition to my band. When we added Julion to the group he had a girlfriend who liked to tag along and watch us practice. When i mean "tag along" i mean keep Julion from working with us, so we had to tell him some rules about girlfriends. He wasn't to happy about it at first and he didn't show up to the next two practices. Before the third practice he called us and told us his girlfriend broke up with him so he was coming to practice, and things went back to normal for a while. In around September we posted ads for a singer and we got several takers. I think one of them was a chick who could sing like an angel. But unfortunately that's not what we were looking for. We went over the very short list and looked at one Zech Nannie, when he auditioned he sounded pretty good so we asked him to stick around and we asked him some questions. He passed most of the questions, and then Nathan brought up the question "How did u get a name like Zech?' he said he was from Germany but he didn't have the German accent. After long and extensive thinking we decided he would be our singer. A month later we made a decision at practice of what to call ourselves, Julion suggested Black Slater, i rearranged it and thought of Black Mamba, Nathan said he wanted something with the word iron in it so Zech thought "How about Iron Pillar?" we all shook our head in agreement and then Iron Pillar was born. We got our first gig at a convention center playing for everybody, and that's just what we did, we played some classics like Crazy Train, Spirit Of Radio, Symphony Of Destruction, Panama,and Bad Medicine. Then for some ballads we played Sweet Child O Mine, Mama I'm Coming Home, Shine, Here I Go Again, and Crying In The Rain. After wards we got paid and we went back to our hangout (The Garage) and thought bout how great and awesome that was. Later Julion got a new base with neon strings, i got a Zakk Wylde Bulls eye Les Paul, and Zech got some pedals for his mic. We played every weekend until October when it started getting cold. During this time i stayed home and played Xbox and Julion got back together with his previous girlfriend. and we never heard from Nathan for some reason his house had a FOR SALE sign when we went by. We called him and he told us that he was moving to Virginia. Julion asked if Nathan could move in with him instead. Nathan tried to convince his parents to let him, but they wouldn't and shortly after we saw the moving van outside his home and we saw him off to Virginia. As we watched that truck leave we thought "Were never gonna find another drummer like him". The rest of us tried to do the gigs but it wasn't the same without Nathan. We gave up our gigs from January to April and i was ready to move on and quit the band, the band that i started the band that took me almost all of my freshman year to form. One night while i was snoozing my phone rung and i answered "Hello?" it was zech "Jarrod your not gonna believe this????" i said shocked "What is it??????" Zech yelled " NATHANS BACK!!!!!!!" I dropped my phone and yelled i couldn't believe it i was coming this close to giving up. Well i guess that's how it is when your in a band.