When the fish were not biting one day on the river, Mr. Brent Manor, a paraprofessional aide at Homestead, and his buddy Sam Schley, pulled out some guitars and began playing. Little did they know that was the beginning of something Mr. Shelby Dixon, freelance conductor, would describe as “top notch.”

Mr. Manor and Schley got the ball rolling when they started playing open-mic nights, and things started to come together when Manor heard Mr. James Davies, science teacher, sing. “I co-taught a class at Homestead with James and he played his guitar and sang for class and amazed me, so we added him as vocals,” Mr. Manor said. They would go on to add John Bonner, who coached football with Mr. Manor, on piano, Nate Ziegler on bass and Amanda Suckow on fiddle. Mr. Manor plays the lead guitar and Schley is on the drums.

Thus became Tangled Lines, a band that does not fit inside the lines. “I would not call us country by any means but we have country elements such as lyrical similarities with storytelling qualities,” Mr. Davies said in regard to what genre of music the band belongs too.

In fact, the band does not really know what genre they should belong to, “but I think that’s what we love about the band,” Mr. Manor said, “we aren’t trying to fit into a category, we just play what we feel.”

Playing what they feel is also how the band has gone about writing songs. “We don’t have a set process and every member of the band has contributed to the writing process,” Mr. Manor said. Mr. Davies and Mr. Manor explained that often times one will come up with a melody and the other with lyrics, and vice versa.

“No song is complete without a great lyric and no great lyric is complete without a melody that can do the story/meaning justice,” Mr. Davies said. This tag-team style of writing reflects the literal meaning of the band name, Tangled Lines. “The dynamics of our band is the basis of our name,” Mr. Davies added.

The process they have established for writing songs has worked very well for them, and Mr. Dixon agreed. “The guitars, piano, fiddle and drums are, in my opinion, top notch, and blend well in the mix toward the total sound package,” Mr. Dixon said.

Another key component to the band’s songs are the meaning behind the lyrics, and Manor went on to say how music helped him get through some rough times. “My dream is that others can do the same with our stuff,” Mr. Manor said.

Gallery • 5 Photos

Tangled Line's dream as a band is to have their music heard and appreciated. Photo by Adam Zinger

Mr. Dixon also said, “Brent Manor’s songs are creatively conceived and poetically meaningful.” Meaningful they are, and in fact Mr. Manor and Mr. Davies favorite songs of their own are very personal and meaningful to them. “53 Weeks” is a song about “a girl I really care about and this great moment I had with her….Every time I hear that song I’m right back in that moment,” Mr. Manor said.

For Mr. Davies, his favorite song was one he wrote a few days after his son Owen was born, called “I Promise”. Mr. Davies said that “until I laid eyes on my son I had never felt happiness and extreme fear at the same time,” and this feeling is summed up by one of the lyrics in the song.

The main dream for the band is to just have their music be heard, Mr. Manor said. This dream is becoming very much a reality with the help of a Multimedia class. Mr. Manor and Mr. Davies contacted the class to get some help on creating a website and making some music videos. “I felt like I was on Shark Tank when we walked in the room to pitch our band as a project to these students,” Mr. Davies said.

Members of Multimedia 3 are working on creating a website, music videos, lyrics videos, logos and social media for the band. “This project doesn’t feel like a class project,” Braxton Orosz, junior, said. Orosz is working on developing the website along with Michael Leykin, senior.

“We are working with our entire class on a large project, and we get the opportunity to experience what a real business feels like.” Adam Zinger, senior and project manager, said. Some of the other students who are working on the project are Ellie Hetrick, senior, and Marcus Messer, junior, who are working on creating logos and marketing the band with business cards. Charlie Vobroucek, junior, and Erin Connolly, Sam David and Kelli Ausman, seniors, are working on lyric videos. Alex Tatterson, senior, is in charge of all the social media sites and releasing the songs, mostly through Soundcloud.

“I love working on this because you see the excitement of this band seeing all this come together. Watching them get excited about their dream coming to life is very exciting to watch,” Messer said.

Zinger added that “each of of the band members is an individual who brings something new to the table…this project shows that they can follow what they’d always dreamt about.”

It is evident that both Multimedia and Tangled Lines are pleased with this partnership, and Davies added “back where I come from in Wales, there was no class like this available in high school so to see such talented individuals produce an awesome project for us makes me very proud to be a Highlander.”

Check out their music here.