Well, it's like this...(kinda long-winded, but hey, that's me!)

It's very autobigraphical...

I've struggled with depression for most of my life, so aside from the "spiritual darkness" I lived in prior to meeting Christ, I also had this chemical/mood darkness going on. Since I also had some limited dealings in the occult (it doesn't take much) before I got saved, the darkness got blacker and thicker...

Fast forward to 1991 when I met Christ...

One of the main concepts that God put in my mind after I met Christ was the whole idea of "coming out of the darkness and into the light". Simple, I know, but it has always had an incredible impact on me.

In 1993/1994, I was working for Kinko's and a mutual friend of my voice teacher/choir director came in and asked me if I could give some documents to the teacher next time I saw him. I said "sure". This guy wrote a funny note to the teacher and called him a "troglodyte". At the time, I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded interesting to me so, I looked it up.

A "troglodyte" is a hermit of sorts that chooses to live in the darkness of caves. I have seen it depicted as a person or a troll-like creature. (I've also heard tell of a story that there were people that were with David when he was hiding from Saul in the cave and they were called "troglodytes".)

Another stop in the story was when I was receiving prayer at the altar of a Vineyard church we were attending in Coeur d'Alene, ID in 1994. My eyes were closed, and the person praying asked me if i could see anything. "I can see an image of the sun rising at dawn", I said. It was very vivid (orange and red against a black backdrop) and comforting to me because I was still struggling with depression and hoping for the "dawn".

The inspiration to use this as the project name/name of the CD came when I was visiting Seattle in 1995 and I happened upon a spectacular sculpture called "The Fremont Troll". Picture a HUGE sombre creature beneath a bridge that is big enough to hold a VW bug in his hand!

(go to this url to see pictures of it: http://www.arfarfarf.com/troll/ )

I was awestruck and the name/concept began to take shape at that point. I quickly remembered the "troglodyte" word I liked so much and I paired it with this cool experience. I began writing/recording shortly thereafter. The band's working name was TROGLODYTE and the debut CD's name was to be "Dawn" (this was after experimenting with the title "Light", but someone commented that "Troglodyte - Light" sounded too much like the name of a beer - and it did!)

Fast forward to 1997...

I was dissatisfied with the TROGLODYTE monicker because it lacked the ultimate hopefulness that I was seeking. Standing in the shower one morning, I heard God direct me to combine the band name and the title into one. Hence, TROGLODYTE DAWN was born. Shortly after that , He also gave me the scripture of Isaiah 9:2 to support it: "Those walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned".

So those are all of the events that led me to the name! Aren't you glad you asked?

Not yet...

The Internet allows bands to promote their music without the influence of a record company. If a band works hard enough on promotion, people all over the world could potentially hear their music. The artists are no longer solely at the mercy of the industry giants!

Perhaps, if all of my demands were met...

THE CAVE:

Imagine some people living in a large cave where, from childhood, they have been chained by the leg and the neck so they cannot move. Because they cannot even turn their heads, they can only see what is in front of them. Behind them is an elevation which rises abruptly from the level where the prisoners are seated. On this elevation there are other persons walking back and forth carrying artifical objects, including the figures of animals and human beings made out of various materials. Behind these walking persons is a fire, and farther back still is the entrance to the cave. The chained prisoners can only look forward against the wall at the end of the cave and can see neither each other, nor the moving persons, nor the fire behind them. All that the prisoners can ever see is the shadows on the wall in front of them, which are projected as persons walking in front of the fire. They never see the objects or the men carrying them, nor are they aware that the shadows are shadows of other things. When they see a shadow and hear a person's voice echo from the wall, they assume the sound is coming from the shadow, since they are not aware of the existence of anything else. These prisoners, then, recognize as reality only the shadows formed on the wall.

What would happen if one of these prisoners was released from his chains, compelled to stand up, turn around, and walk with eyes lifted up towards the light of the fire? Suppose he was forced to look at the objects being carried, the shadows of which he had become accustomed to seeing on the wall. Would he not find these actual objects less pleasing to his eyes, and less meaningful, than the shadows? And would not his eyes ache if he looked straight at the light of the fire itself? At this point, he would undoubtedly try to escape from his liberator and turn back to the things he could see with clarity, being convinced that the shadows were clearer than the objects he was forced to look at in the firelight.

Suppose this prisoner could not turn back, but was instead compelled to trudge up the steep and rough passage to the mouth of the cave and released only after he had been brought out into the light of the Son. The impact of the radiance of the Son upon his eyes would be so brilliant that he would not be able to see any of the things that he was now told were real. It would take some time before his eyes became accustomed to the world outside the cave. He would first of all recognize some shadows and would feel at home with them. Next, he would see the reflection of men and things in the water, and this would represent a major advance in his knowledge, for what he once knew as only a solid dark blur would now be seen in more precise detail of line and color. A flower makes a shadow, which gives very little, if any, indication of what a flower really looks like, but its image as reflected in the water provides the eyes with a clearer vision of each petal and its various colors. In time, he would see the flower itself. As he lifted his eyes skyward, he would find it easier at first to look at the heavenly bodies at night, looking at the moon and the stars instead of the Son in daytime. Finally, he would look right at the Son in His natural position and not His reflection from or through anything else.

- PLATO

Black Sabbath; Brian Eno; Arthur Brown; Tangerine Dream; Place of Skulls; Kemper Crabb/ArkAngel; The Bevis Frond; the D.I.Y. credo of the NWOBHM, PUNK and LO-FI/HI-VIBE movements.

The state of Maine during Autumn.

Orange Amplification; Boss Effects; Gibson and Agile Guitars

SPECIAL GUESTS on the debut CD:

Andrew Flake - Lead Guitar solo on "Fallen World"

Kevin Mack - Bass on "Forever After" and "Flower"

CD PURCHASE INFORMATION:

http://trogdawn.bravehost.com/merch.html