http://www.peteyorn.com/

On every Behind The Music it's the same old story… loner, rebel, outcast, drugs, alcohol, sex, blah blah blah. At the end of the hour, you exhale and wonder if it's possible to be normal and a rockstar. It is possible. Take Pete Yorn. He's as normal as they come. He was born in New Jersey, craves chicken quesadillas and is a freak for backgammon. He was in a band called Backgammon for Troubled Youth and a Replacement's cover band called Cheese. Speaking of cheese, the first album he ever bought was Ratt's Out of the Cellar. Unmotivated by his job as a bank teller, he usually fell asleep at the drive-thru window. With eyes wide open, Pete Yorn no longer has to wait for life to begin or convince himself that everything is alright 'cos it already is.

Yorn's dad made a living pulling teeth and examining bicuspids as a dentist while his mom went from concert pianist to an apple-patched, sweater-wearing school teacher. Instead of following in his parent's footsteps, Yorn took off in a different direction. At the age of nine, when most kids are out banging toy trucks together, Yorn was learning to bang away on his brother's drum set. At age twelve, instead of practicing the strokes of a perfect shave for pre-puberty preparation, he focused on learning the strokes of the guitar.

For almost any insecure, awkward, voice-cracking high school teenager, the risk Pete Yorn took in his Montville High School auditorium one night could endanger anyone's social standing. In 1990 for the first time in his life, Yorn sang in public at his school's annual talent show. From behind his drum set, Yorn covered the Replacement's tune "Talent Show." The performance was such a jaw-dropping edge-of-your-seat performance that a competing band begged Yorn to sing a cover of Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World" with them. This experience opened the doors to music and Yorn never turned back.

While many of his fellow Syracuse grads pursued suit and tie jobs, Yorn took off to LA and created quite a following with his Café Largo performances. During one such performance, Yorn struck a chord with Bradley Thomas (producer of Kingpin and There's Something About Mary). As a result, two tracks, "Strange Condition" and "Just Another," were used in the Farrelly Brother's film Me, Myself, and Irene. If that wasn't enough, the Farrelly's asked Yorn to compose the entire film's score. Leaving no market unturned, Yorn contributed his song "Just Another" to the WB's Felicity as well as the Dawson's Creek Volume 2 album.

A Columbia Records A&R rep nailed Yorn after an impromptu rendition of his song "Life On A Chain" and Yorn soon thereafter began recording. Maybe it was the dirt-under-your-nails-feel of the garage or the cockroaches and spiderwebs that drew inspiration… whatever it was, he chose to record his first album in the garage of R. Walt Vincent's California home in San Fernando Valley. In 2001, Yorn released his debut album musicforthemorningafter, a mixture of everything he loves about Americana and Britpop.

-Amy Schaefer