Tomrad: A History
I was not planning on posting this here, but it just got way too long. Feel free to ignore if you don't care about bandom. For the record, this is all I've done all night and I have a midterm tomorrow. If I fail, I'm sending Tom Conrad a letter.
ETA JULY 23, 2008 I have written an in-depth TAI primer here and it goes more into the whole Tom/TAI thing.
Thomas Alfred Conrad was born on May 19, 1984. In between then and 2000, he learned to play the guitar, use a camera and become one the most awesomest people on the planet.
In 1999, some Chicago hardcore scene kids got together and formed a band called 5O4 Plan. They shuffled through members for awhile before deciding on a finalized lineup, that including Tom on the guitar in 2000. He was 16. Tom most likely found out about the band from his friend Nick Scimeca. In Nick's own words:
"Met on the net at 15. Bandmates from 15-20. Best Friends/Neighbors now."
ETA May 15, 2008: Nick Scimeca was on HeyChris's radio show this week and had this to say about Tom and 504 Plan:
Nick Scimeca: "I'll tell you somethin' about 504 Plan no one knows."
Hey Chris: "Okay, then."
Nick: "So, me and Mikey, the singer, started this band and we didn't have a second guitar player. And this kid hit me up online, on like a get up kids message board or something and he was all 'Let's start a band.' And he kept callin' my phone and I was like, 'This kid's creepy, dude.'"
Chris: "How did that kid get your phone number?"
Nick: "I probably gave it to him."
*insert Hey Chris and Stephanie (Nick's girlfriend) laughing and making fun of Nick*
Nick: "Yeah, but he called like every five seconds."
*more making fun of Nick*
Nick: "And he kept calling me and I was like 'Yo, don't answer the phone, I don't know how this dude is, right?'"
Chris: "Right."
Nick: "That dude was Tom Conrad."
Chris: "Really?"
Stephanie: "That is so Tom Conrad."
Tom also introduced Nick to design and Photoshop because Nick's angelfire website was "not cool."
5O4 Plan played and toured around the area for a couple years (and was asked to do a few Warped dates in the summer of 2001) before they released Treehouse Talk in January 2002. They continued touring and played a few dates on Warped again that summer. All members were continuing with school (high school and college, from what I understand) and it started to take a toll. In 2003, their bassist, whose name I think was Adam, quit to pursue his education full time. So to fill his shoes, they found a wonderful young man named Jon Walker (born September 17, 1985, so he was 17 when he first joined). They record their EP Minutia and released it the same year. The band called it quits in early 2004.
Now, 5O4 Plan's Myspace has a nice long statement about why they broke-up, but I think this is the most interesting part:
When Jon joined, we knew from the beginning he would not be the solution to Adam's departure, yet we hoped just the opposite since he fit perfectly in our jigsaw puzzle of a band. This only led to Nick questioning his future in music. Touring was never something Nick, Adam, Jon or Mike truly enjoyed or wanted, which opened new thinking to where 5o4PLAN was headed.
So apparently, Tom was the only one who really loved touring and everyone else was just burned out. Interesting though, that Jon didn't like touring as much, even though he "fit perfectly". Am I dissecting too much? Probably. Anyway.
ETA 2/8/08: In my reading of Nick Scimeca's livejournal (dickplan), I have discovered that 5O4 Plan's problems seemed to have largely circulated around Mikey, the lead singer, and Nick, and Nick, Jon and Tom had no bad blood over it all. ETA 5/18/08 Also, according to Nick's livejournal, Tom likes to go through your things while you sleep.
It's now 2004, Tom is 19 going on 20 and looking for a new band. Local band, The Academy Is..., is looking for a new drummer and guitar player to tour with, as the ones that that they just record Almost Here with parted ways. So Tom, and his friend Andy "The Butcher" Mrotek, joined William, Siska and Mike and went out on tour.
TAI toured a lot, from what I understand. Apparently all this touring made Tom long for someone that he had toured with before, someone that understood him and vice versa, because in the fall of 2005, he asked Jon Walker to come out on tour with them to bass tech and take pictures and video (even though, as you should know by now, Tom is amazing photographer and someone else (Jack the Camera Guy?) had been shooting most of their TAI TVs. But I digress). Jon had been pursuing a film degree at Columbia College in Chicago. He also worked at Starbucks and unironically wore flip flops.
Going out on tour with TAI was obviously a better use of his time.
On the Rise of the Fall tour, which was with the All-American Rejects and some other bands, I assume, but finding out-dated tour information is hard, Tom took the following photos of Jon.
He also took pictures of his bandmates and pretty trees and landscapes and awesome shit like that.
ETA 5/18/08 I want to add that I actually have no idea if Jon teched the Rise of the Fall tour or not. I assume he did, but he might have just come out and visited for a week. if I find out, I'll edit this again.
Anyway, TAI kept touring on and off into 2006. The next big tour of importance was the Truck Stops and Statelines Tour. Now this is significant because it is the first time they toured with Panic! At the Disco (also on the tour were Acceptance and Hellogoodbye). This tour started on February 1, 2006 and lasted until the middle of April, by all accounts.
During this time, Panic was really starting to get a lot of attention. "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies" was getting played on MTV and their album sales were rising. From what I understand, at the beginning of the tour, Hellogoodbye opened the show, then Panic, then Acceptance, then TAI. By halfway through the tour, Hellogoodbye was opening, Acceptance was playing next and Panic was going on right before TAI and basically stealing the show. One account said the the "frontmen" regularly battled for attention.
Most significantly though, Jon Walker was on this tour. This is not just important to myself and my tinhat, because this is how Jon met Panic.
But speaking of tinhats, Tom took the following photos of Jon on the Truck Stops and Statelines tour:
(I'm pretty sure this last one Butcher, but whatever)
So, that tour ends in April. TAI and Panic and GCH and maybe some other bands, who knows, it's all so damn incestuous, go to Japan for a tour.
Jon did not join them, however. He went back to Chicago to contemplate his future.
And hang out with Pete Wentz and Nick Scimeca.
Over the next few weeks, Panic starts going through some troubles. It seems that Mr. Brent Wilson is not committed to Team Sparkle Motion. Jon is asked to fill in at the KROQ Weenie Roast to make up for his supposedly unexplained absence. By May 17th, it has gone too far for Ryan, Brendon and Spencer to deal with, so they kick Brent to the curb and call up their good friend Jon to fill in until they can find a permanent replacement. Jon jumps at the chance and reportedly flies out to meet the boys the next day. He also learned the parts to all their songs by listening to them on the plane. Jon Walker is awesome.
Now, I have no idea if Jon was planning on going on Warped tour with TAI, but considering he had done two tours that year already, he might have been up for it. Who knows, but I like to think he was going to go, because I'm a fucking tinhat.
ANYWAY, TAI went out on Warped tour, which started in June of 2006.
Despite all appearances...
Things were not as they seemed. Tom has said that the band's morale was not high (and that it hadn't been since the tour with Panic). For Tom, it was because of this:
Going into last summer was a bit rough for me. I had came home from a tour over seas to hear news that an old friend passed away tragically. Shortly after, my family and I experienced another loss with the passing a family relative due to illness.
As for the rest of them, this is my assumption, but I think William and Mike were feeling lots of pressure to start working on their follow-up and that they were going to be the next Fall Out Boy. So once Warped ended and they took a break, more talks of the next record came up. Remember, Tom had never written music with these guys before, so his thoughts and William and Mike's, were not seeing eye to eye. In his own words:
Since I was not a part of the creative process, things were not as fulfilling. Bill and Mike have their own way of doing things. I was never needed for the writing process, but nor did I ever really fight to be a part of it.
It was both Bill and Mike and his own decision to stay out of the writing. However, as they got closer to really working on the record, Tom's unwillingness to contribute, along with Bill and Mike's crazy intense writing process, led to an inevitable breaking point.
Also:
The dynamics between Bill and Mike makes things very hard. One almost has to take sides to get anything done, which is something that I did not do while in the band. As an escape from all of this, I started photographing many of my experiences while traveling.
Tom does not like conflict, so he choose to avoid Mike and Bill instead of dealing with them. This, along with everything mentioned above, are why I think Tom was kicked out.
Now, here comes the controversy.
On September 25, 2006, a post is made to the TAI LJ community. Apparently, Tom's girlfriend made a comment on either a Myspace or a Livejournal, about Tom being kicked out (said comment was deleted that night). All hell broke loose among the teenies. Most of them didn't believe it and thought the teenie who broke the news was sad and lame for stalking his girlfriend and that it was just a joke. However, it did make the fans nervous and over the next few weeks, there were many, many posts about Tom leaving/the band breaking up/tears of emo/etc. Including this post in which Tony, their tour manager, says he doesn't know anything about Tom being kicked out.
Things are getting increasingly tense for the fans and most are accepting the fact that Tom is out of the band, but it is not until October 23rd that the official statement comes:
brightly forked futures
After two years on the road together, Tom and the Academy Is... have gone in seperate directions.
Tom and his photographs can be found at forevernever.net
William, Mike, Adam, and The Butcher can be found in an abandoned warehouse, somewhere on the southside of Chicago writing their second album.
While we are not too excited about the potential internet drama this news might invite, we felt our fans should know. We hope you understand and can continue to support both The Academy Is..., and Tom.
From there, TAI rarely speaks about Tom and refers to the writing process of Santi as smooth, which is a big fat lie. Boys, I love you and that album, but come on. Anyway, Michael Guy Chislett joins and things are going pretty damn well for them. Well, as well as they can. Secret baby.
Similarly, Tom is making new music with his new band Empires, buying his ugly dog sweaters (eta Bear is no longer living with Tom, poor thing) and still hanging out with Jwalk. I was going to put the Nothing Rhymes with Circus tour pictures in, but you've seen all of those and now of their loldorable BFFness on that tour. Also, for the record, there are more pictures of Jon than anything else from that tour on his website.
ETA I forgot this. This was Tom's blog entry, dated November 1, 2006.
its about time you showed up
I apologize. I would have said something sooner but it was not the right time nor was this the right place to do it and honestly, it still isn't. There's not much to say with what happened besides I dont want people thinking I quit the band. Thank you to everyone that has reached out to me and shared such kind words. You mean the world to me. Big thank you to everyone at Crush, FBR, APA, the Crew and definitely TMx2. But what now for Thomas Conrad you ask? Not quite sure but I will keep taking photographs and this will be the place to view / read of what I've been up to. Moving on...Some of the prints are almost gone in the webstore. Don't wait if you care to have one. Once they're gone, they're gone. What else?!? Ah, I posted a photo journal from my most favorite tour I was ever a part of, this summers warped tour. ooh really? nah... Next week, I will be heading out with Panic! At the Disco to expose what fresh individuals they are through a lens of camera. Jwalk and I were actually separated at birth. Believe it. One last thing, definitely check out Day19.com. They have a photo'zine for sale which is worth the coin. Get it. take care.
-tom
ETA 2/08/08: I went back and fixed some things that I know for sure now. I'll probably do an Empires primer, sooner or later, now that we know that it exists.
ETA 5/18/08: Went and added/fixed some other things. I really should just do an Empires one, now and link it back to this one.
ETA JULY 23, 2008 I have written an in-depth TAI primer here and it goes more into the whole Tom/TAI thing.
Thomas Alfred Conrad was born on May 19, 1984. In between then and 2000, he learned to play the guitar, use a camera and become one the most awesomest people on the planet.
In 1999, some Chicago hardcore scene kids got together and formed a band called 5O4 Plan. They shuffled through members for awhile before deciding on a finalized lineup, that including Tom on the guitar in 2000. He was 16. Tom most likely found out about the band from his friend Nick Scimeca. In Nick's own words:
"Met on the net at 15. Bandmates from 15-20. Best Friends/Neighbors now."
ETA May 15, 2008: Nick Scimeca was on HeyChris's radio show this week and had this to say about Tom and 504 Plan:
Nick Scimeca: "I'll tell you somethin' about 504 Plan no one knows."
Hey Chris: "Okay, then."
Nick: "So, me and Mikey, the singer, started this band and we didn't have a second guitar player. And this kid hit me up online, on like a get up kids message board or something and he was all 'Let's start a band.' And he kept callin' my phone and I was like, 'This kid's creepy, dude.'"
Chris: "How did that kid get your phone number?"
Nick: "I probably gave it to him."
*insert Hey Chris and Stephanie (Nick's girlfriend) laughing and making fun of Nick*
Nick: "Yeah, but he called like every five seconds."
*more making fun of Nick*
Nick: "And he kept calling me and I was like 'Yo, don't answer the phone, I don't know how this dude is, right?'"
Chris: "Right."
Nick: "That dude was Tom Conrad."
Chris: "Really?"
Stephanie: "That is so Tom Conrad."
Tom also introduced Nick to design and Photoshop because Nick's angelfire website was "not cool."
5O4 Plan played and toured around the area for a couple years (and was asked to do a few Warped dates in the summer of 2001) before they released Treehouse Talk in January 2002. They continued touring and played a few dates on Warped again that summer. All members were continuing with school (high school and college, from what I understand) and it started to take a toll. In 2003, their bassist, whose name I think was Adam, quit to pursue his education full time. So to fill his shoes, they found a wonderful young man named Jon Walker (born September 17, 1985, so he was 17 when he first joined). They record their EP Minutia and released it the same year. The band called it quits in early 2004.
Now, 5O4 Plan's Myspace has a nice long statement about why they broke-up, but I think this is the most interesting part:
When Jon joined, we knew from the beginning he would not be the solution to Adam's departure, yet we hoped just the opposite since he fit perfectly in our jigsaw puzzle of a band. This only led to Nick questioning his future in music. Touring was never something Nick, Adam, Jon or Mike truly enjoyed or wanted, which opened new thinking to where 5o4PLAN was headed.
So apparently, Tom was the only one who really loved touring and everyone else was just burned out. Interesting though, that Jon didn't like touring as much, even though he "fit perfectly". Am I dissecting too much? Probably. Anyway.
ETA 2/8/08: In my reading of Nick Scimeca's livejournal (dickplan), I have discovered that 5O4 Plan's problems seemed to have largely circulated around Mikey, the lead singer, and Nick, and Nick, Jon and Tom had no bad blood over it all. ETA 5/18/08 Also, according to Nick's livejournal, Tom likes to go through your things while you sleep.
It's now 2004, Tom is 19 going on 20 and looking for a new band. Local band, The Academy Is..., is looking for a new drummer and guitar player to tour with, as the ones that that they just record Almost Here with parted ways. So Tom, and his friend Andy "The Butcher" Mrotek, joined William, Siska and Mike and went out on tour.
TAI toured a lot, from what I understand. Apparently all this touring made Tom long for someone that he had toured with before, someone that understood him and vice versa, because in the fall of 2005, he asked Jon Walker to come out on tour with them to bass tech and take pictures and video (even though, as you should know by now, Tom is amazing photographer and someone else (Jack the Camera Guy?) had been shooting most of their TAI TVs. But I digress). Jon had been pursuing a film degree at Columbia College in Chicago. He also worked at Starbucks and unironically wore flip flops.
Going out on tour with TAI was obviously a better use of his time.
On the Rise of the Fall tour, which was with the All-American Rejects and some other bands, I assume, but finding out-dated tour information is hard, Tom took the following photos of Jon.
He also took pictures of his bandmates and pretty trees and landscapes and awesome shit like that.
ETA 5/18/08 I want to add that I actually have no idea if Jon teched the Rise of the Fall tour or not. I assume he did, but he might have just come out and visited for a week. if I find out, I'll edit this again.
Anyway, TAI kept touring on and off into 2006. The next big tour of importance was the Truck Stops and Statelines Tour. Now this is significant because it is the first time they toured with Panic! At the Disco (also on the tour were Acceptance and Hellogoodbye). This tour started on February 1, 2006 and lasted until the middle of April, by all accounts.
During this time, Panic was really starting to get a lot of attention. "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies" was getting played on MTV and their album sales were rising. From what I understand, at the beginning of the tour, Hellogoodbye opened the show, then Panic, then Acceptance, then TAI. By halfway through the tour, Hellogoodbye was opening, Acceptance was playing next and Panic was going on right before TAI and basically stealing the show. One account said the the "frontmen" regularly battled for attention.
Most significantly though, Jon Walker was on this tour. This is not just important to myself and my tinhat, because this is how Jon met Panic.
But speaking of tinhats, Tom took the following photos of Jon on the Truck Stops and Statelines tour:
(I'm pretty sure this last one Butcher, but whatever)
So, that tour ends in April. TAI and Panic and GCH and maybe some other bands, who knows, it's all so damn incestuous, go to Japan for a tour.
Jon did not join them, however. He went back to Chicago to contemplate his future.
And hang out with Pete Wentz and Nick Scimeca.
Over the next few weeks, Panic starts going through some troubles. It seems that Mr. Brent Wilson is not committed to Team Sparkle Motion. Jon is asked to fill in at the KROQ Weenie Roast to make up for his supposedly unexplained absence. By May 17th, it has gone too far for Ryan, Brendon and Spencer to deal with, so they kick Brent to the curb and call up their good friend Jon to fill in until they can find a permanent replacement. Jon jumps at the chance and reportedly flies out to meet the boys the next day. He also learned the parts to all their songs by listening to them on the plane. Jon Walker is awesome.
Now, I have no idea if Jon was planning on going on Warped tour with TAI, but considering he had done two tours that year already, he might have been up for it. Who knows, but I like to think he was going to go, because I'm a fucking tinhat.
ANYWAY, TAI went out on Warped tour, which started in June of 2006.
Despite all appearances...
Things were not as they seemed. Tom has said that the band's morale was not high (and that it hadn't been since the tour with Panic). For Tom, it was because of this:
Going into last summer was a bit rough for me. I had came home from a tour over seas to hear news that an old friend passed away tragically. Shortly after, my family and I experienced another loss with the passing a family relative due to illness.
As for the rest of them, this is my assumption, but I think William and Mike were feeling lots of pressure to start working on their follow-up and that they were going to be the next Fall Out Boy. So once Warped ended and they took a break, more talks of the next record came up. Remember, Tom had never written music with these guys before, so his thoughts and William and Mike's, were not seeing eye to eye. In his own words:
Since I was not a part of the creative process, things were not as fulfilling. Bill and Mike have their own way of doing things. I was never needed for the writing process, but nor did I ever really fight to be a part of it.
It was both Bill and Mike and his own decision to stay out of the writing. However, as they got closer to really working on the record, Tom's unwillingness to contribute, along with Bill and Mike's crazy intense writing process, led to an inevitable breaking point.
Also:
The dynamics between Bill and Mike makes things very hard. One almost has to take sides to get anything done, which is something that I did not do while in the band. As an escape from all of this, I started photographing many of my experiences while traveling.
Tom does not like conflict, so he choose to avoid Mike and Bill instead of dealing with them. This, along with everything mentioned above, are why I think Tom was kicked out.
Now, here comes the controversy.
On September 25, 2006, a post is made to the TAI LJ community. Apparently, Tom's girlfriend made a comment on either a Myspace or a Livejournal, about Tom being kicked out (said comment was deleted that night). All hell broke loose among the teenies. Most of them didn't believe it and thought the teenie who broke the news was sad and lame for stalking his girlfriend and that it was just a joke. However, it did make the fans nervous and over the next few weeks, there were many, many posts about Tom leaving/the band breaking up/tears of emo/etc. Including this post in which Tony, their tour manager, says he doesn't know anything about Tom being kicked out.
Things are getting increasingly tense for the fans and most are accepting the fact that Tom is out of the band, but it is not until October 23rd that the official statement comes:
brightly forked futures
After two years on the road together, Tom and the Academy Is... have gone in seperate directions.
Tom and his photographs can be found at forevernever.net
William, Mike, Adam, and The Butcher can be found in an abandoned warehouse, somewhere on the southside of Chicago writing their second album.
While we are not too excited about the potential internet drama this news might invite, we felt our fans should know. We hope you understand and can continue to support both The Academy Is..., and Tom.
From there, TAI rarely speaks about Tom and refers to the writing process of Santi as smooth, which is a big fat lie. Boys, I love you and that album, but come on. Anyway, Michael Guy Chislett joins and things are going pretty damn well for them. Well, as well as they can. Secret baby.
Similarly, Tom is making new music with his new band Empires, buying his ugly dog sweaters (eta Bear is no longer living with Tom, poor thing) and still hanging out with Jwalk. I was going to put the Nothing Rhymes with Circus tour pictures in, but you've seen all of those and now of their loldorable BFFness on that tour. Also, for the record, there are more pictures of Jon than anything else from that tour on his website.
ETA I forgot this. This was Tom's blog entry, dated November 1, 2006.
its about time you showed up
I apologize. I would have said something sooner but it was not the right time nor was this the right place to do it and honestly, it still isn't. There's not much to say with what happened besides I dont want people thinking I quit the band. Thank you to everyone that has reached out to me and shared such kind words. You mean the world to me. Big thank you to everyone at Crush, FBR, APA, the Crew and definitely TMx2. But what now for Thomas Conrad you ask? Not quite sure but I will keep taking photographs and this will be the place to view / read of what I've been up to. Moving on...Some of the prints are almost gone in the webstore. Don't wait if you care to have one. Once they're gone, they're gone. What else?!? Ah, I posted a photo journal from my most favorite tour I was ever a part of, this summers warped tour. ooh really? nah... Next week, I will be heading out with Panic! At the Disco to expose what fresh individuals they are through a lens of camera. Jwalk and I were actually separated at birth. Believe it. One last thing, definitely check out Day19.com. They have a photo'zine for sale which is worth the coin. Get it. take care.
-tom
ETA 2/08/08: I went back and fixed some things that I know for sure now. I'll probably do an Empires primer, sooner or later, now that we know that it exists.
ETA 5/18/08: Went and added/fixed some other things. I really should just do an Empires one, now and link it back to this one.