On Christmas of 1994 jon got what he always wanted... an electric guitar. It was a black on white mexican fender strat. Jon would spend everyday of his life from that point on playing that guitar, he still does to this day in college. He also purchased a Fender Deluxe tube amp (40watts). He collected other small additions like distortion and effect pedals.
In the mid-90s, jon started to listen to a ton of punk music and loved it. He loved MxPx and Value Pac. He started writing his own songs which were just ordinary punk songs. He wrote his first song which still does not have a title to this day but could be considerd, "My sister has a boyfriend...". The music and lyrics are perfect and jon knew that he was capable of writing many more great songs.
The name "Savage Fen" isnt that complex, in fact very simple. One day in the mid 90s when jon had his best friend over, they messed around with the music stuff and jokingly called their band Savage Fen. Savage is a small town outside of the Twin Cities. Jon's parents own dozens of rental property, some in Savage, MN. In back of one of their properties is a fen, or swamp. A fen is like a swamp but also like quicksand which sucks everything in that falls into it. The name stuck in jon's head ever since.
After listening to so much punk music, jon started to spread his horizons as he got hooked on techno and electronic music. One of those bands was Joy Electric. Jon fell in love with synths and wanted to purchase one but couldnt cause he was so poor. Other bands that captivated him were Good Night Star, Plankeye, Norway, and Fine China.
In his late teens, Jon discovered a band from Riverside, Cal. called Starflyer 59. After listening to some tracks online he purchased a few Starflyer 59 tracks and became hooked. SF59's shoegaze sound totally captiviated him and Jon began to vere his own music in the Shoegaze/Britpop direction.
After having an electric guitar for awhile, jon decided he wanted an acoustic. He visited Guitar Center all the time and fell in love with a Ovation Elite Special. It had a beautiful burst color to it and stood out among all the other guitars. Jon would come in almost everyday and play the guitar for hours. He was stund when his parents showed him the guitar they bought him for his birthday in 2001, however he still had to give 400 bucks for the 850 dollar guitar.
Jon graduated from highschool in 2002 and decided to attend Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He recieved a small music scholarship and minored in music while majoring in communication journalism. He was anxious to find musicans to play with in the south. However, jon found that there was literally no music scene whatsoever exept for country hicks and failed to persue his love of music during this freshman year in college. School kept him plenty busy, but he still continued to write songs in his tiny 10by10 foot dorm room, where he would eventually write his best songs.
When returning back from school in the summer of 2003, jon found some bands to play with. He played bass for several bands but not guitar for any of them. It is becomming a know fact that bass players are extremely hard to come by. Jon had an ibenaz bass for about 4 years that he hardly ever played. He isnt a great bass player but good enough to satisfy most people.
Jon then returned to Oklahoma in the fall of 2003 for his 2nd year of school. He hooked up with a female singer from Norman, Oklahoma. There was a lot of chemistry. Jon drove down to Norman to play some music with her and both exchanged music ideas and lyrics. Unfortuantly, the two were not able to make the band happen due to the distance between them and the fact that they were both extremly busy with school.
In 2004, when jon was a sophmore in college, he joined the band, Obadiah, a band based in Guthrie, Oklahoma, 20 minutes north of oklahoma city. He played bass for them as well but stayed with them much longer than he did with anyother band. The band lost both their lead guitar and bass player and were in dier need of a bass player. Not only did jon memorize all their songs in one day to play a show 3 days after that, he made up his own bass lines that made the original members of the band and fans mouths drop. During this time, jon was still searching for a female singer that would help him start his own band.
