Living on the road...almost

“Living on the Road…Almost” is how the article released Dec. 17th, 2014 in the Des Moines Register’s Juice and Iowa Life should have stated.  The cover features our family in front of our house for sale, our anchor. Until that anchor sold, our dream would have to wait, or as I like to say, gestate. Another story, written by Patresa Hartman was published in Band Bombshell last Aug.and begins telling the story of The High Crest getting on the road.  But no matter what the headlines or when the story was written, we have yet to get on the road. 

When you decide to simplify your life, it actually gets more complicated. What will be gained is way on down the road. So far down the road, you can’t see it.  You just have to believe it is there waiting for you.  I still can’t see the end of the road but I do have faith. Faith that what I need is waiting for me and what I carry are the tools to get there.

The dream of playing music on the road with Aaron Short started with in the first few weeks of knowing each other.  We made a commitment then to make it happen, why not!? What followed sent us flying into our lives together, marriage and our daughter Abileen. 

Now we have a daughter. What seemed like the easiest route, get paycheck jobs and a roof over your head, didn’t feel right no matter how hard we tried.  Why did we try so hard to begin with? Was I scared? Yes. Was I learning? Yes. Every turn in your life leads you to what you need to learn and I needed to learn that this was my destiny. What a romantic word! I might as well say “dream.”

What has happened to me since I began writing songs has solidified my love of music.  I’ve always had it, bad – band geek, musicals, lessons, solos, then to learning guitar to back up my singing. My mom always said, “Use you what you got. You were given your gifts for a reason.”  My reason is to write songs and play them for you - simple enough, but oh so hard.  After years of live shows, aka. feeding yourself to the wolves, I've found a home for my musical soul in The High Crest. 

The High Crest is a family band now.  All three of us plan on making music together for the next few years and we plan to do it on the road. 

People have a lot of opinions on this matter of living on the road.  One of the statements we hear is, “Do it why you are young.” And Aaron just replies with, “Well this is as young as I can get.”

Another question often asked is, “Are you home schooling Abileen?” Yes, we are. We have been home schooling her for a few years now, first through pre-school, kindergarten and now first grade.  Home schooling is a very intimidating adventure but we always knew that we wanted to perform music and be on the road. To be able to do that we had to embrace home schooling and all that it has meant for my family, and to do this in the early stages with Abileen.

“I like what you are doing, I don’t like how you are doing it,” was another exclamation. This is not a conventional life, for sure, but does anyone have a true conventional life? What we have is life, and what we do with it. As long as I can create the environment where my family is safe, nurtured, social and learning – I can do this, for our own happiness.

People just want to know, “Where are you heading?!?” We have plans in our schedule to hit the Midwest and our home state of Iowa heavily. We want to go to Texas and Colorado and head back out to the NW Coast, Oregon and Washington.  And of course we would love to hit up the music cities, Austin, Nashville and Memphis. If you know of a place where we can come play some music in your area, let us know!

We have just begun our journey to the road. We are closer than we have ever been thanks to our management team, Shotgun Mgmt, all of our fans and friends who have made the choice to support The High Crest, and most importantly John and Linda Short for all the times hanging with Abileen while we’ve had a show, supporting us at our lowest and highest points and now helping even more with our transition to the road. THANK YOU!

Stay tuned for more from The High Crest!

Thanks for reading,

Kat Darling

4-24-15