In The Beginning
Once upon a time there was a band called Crosswind that was started by Steve Wolpert and a friend from art school. This band practiced every Sunday playing original blues-based hard rock tunes. However for all the music they played, they lacked a singer and had the worst luck finding one that fit.

Along came a fellow named John Thompkins who had an incredible rock & roll look, slender and lanky, long hair and the chicks were drawn to him like a magnet. He had a great voice and was welcomed in to the band without hesitation. It didn't take long to learn that, while he had a great voice and good presence, he couldn't keep a beat to save his life. While annoying, Crosswind figured he had everything else, perhaps his timing could be learned. Some great songs were written with John, however he just never quite got the timing thing down.

One Sunday, John arrived at practice to say that he was quitting. He had met a guitar player from a another band called Nitwit and they needed a singer and he wanted to try his hand at a heavier sound. Needless to say Crosswind were not that upset to lose him since without timing, he was relatively useless as a front man.

During the next few weeks, Crosswind's bass player moved to Philadelphia to attent a trade school, the band's manager had a falling out with Steve and the band basicaly disintegrated.

Still friendly with John, Steve was invited to come jam with Nitwit to fill an empty guitar player spot.

At the jam session, Steve was introduced to Nitwit's writer and guitar player, Mike Forrester. Having similar demented senses of humor, the beginning of a unique and insane friendship had begun.

Steve practiced with Mike over the next couple weeks learning Nitwit songs and developing a solid friendship. One thing on which they agreed was that John had a very poor sense of timing or rhythm. Soon, John was out and Mike decide to sing for Nitwit for the time being.

Unfortunately, Steve decided that Nitwit's music was to detatched from his style and turned down the guitar position, however he and Mike remained fast friends and always sought eachother out for musical guidance and approval.

The Collaboration
After some time, Mike and Steve had realized that, while their styles were very different there was something about their musical chemistry that needed to be explored. They decided that, while they continued to work on their own seperate projects, to try a project writing together and see if they could successfully bring both of their musical interpretations into play.

The result of this initial collaboration were two songs. The first was a classical style song Subtle Anguish. This tune was written using two twelve string guitars with a beautiful, two-part intro and beginning. The song was very deep and emotional and proved to Mike and Steve that their musical experiences and styles could be melded into something special.

The second piece to come out of this original collaboration was called Great Escape. This song was written as a musical interpretation of an insane mind trying to escape from itself. From the start of the tune, the listener is taken on an emotional roller coaster ride.

Mike and Steve were about one thing...music. Writing good, quality songs. Not for women, not for money but for the sake of being artists who's canvas is a stereo and their paintbrush a guitar.

Family Time and the Return to Insanity

Over the next couple years, Steve and Mike found less time for music as they fell in the groove of getting married and doing the family thing. Music was put on the back burner and they gradually lost touch.

In the summer of 1998, Steve seperated from his wife and started to focus again on writing music. Shortly after the seperation, Steve received an odd phone call from a would-be jokester. A deep, whispering breath on the phone seemed to know everything that was going on. Once the voice had finally pressed Steve to demand identification of the caller, the caller replied, "you don't know who this is?"...it was Mike. Ironically Mike had seperated from his wife recently and he, too had returned to writing music.

Timing could not have been better. Both Mike and Steve had just gone thorugh very emotional situations and they found consulation in eachother's ability to empathize. They decided to do a musical project using the experiences of heartbreak, anger and breaking ties and moving on with life. They decided to call themselves Bleed. Bleed does not refer to blood from a vein, but rather the intense emotion, the rage, screams that one emotes when the chips are down.

The resulting project was entitled Bleed: twentyfourseven and consisted of songs written during this time of anguish and enlightenment. There actually were many tunes to come out of these sessions. The eight songs on this cd were the ones that summed up the period best.

The Yo Yo Effect

After a few months, both Mike and Steve had met new mates but they maintained their newly reunited friendship. However a new problem was rising that would toss another wrench into the Bleed machine. Starting with the issues surrounding his divorce, Mike had turned to the bottle and unfortunately fell victim to the demon within. His creativity began to suffer and the whole scene put a strain on Mike and Steve's friendship.

As could be expected, Mike had opened pandora's bottle and a chain reaction of crap befell him ultimately resulting in a steady downward spiral of losing everything that was important to him. Steve tried to help his friend and partner and for a time, it was working. Mike cleaned himself up, managed to get some help and was doing much better. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for Mike to fall back to the dark side and again, when the bottle was opened, the chain of events started again.

Mike and Steve fell in and out of communication during this period and for the most part, lost touch. It was very difficult for Steve to see Mike in this condition, especially when there was little he could do for him. A call would come around holiday times which was a sign to Steve that his friend was still in there somewhere.

In 2004 Mike managed to get help, clean up and get off the bottle. He has been clean for many months and has found stability in his life once again. Again, a well timed phone call was made by Mike and, with friendship renewed and a new age of promise, the music can become important again and the trials of being young and stupid could be left behind.

Bleed is a work in progress. Hopefully some good music can be produced before the next swing of the pendulum, which seems to be an unfortunate inevitablity for Bleed. But their friendship has prevailed through the toughest of times and will continue to prevail.

Bleed is about music. Bleed is about perseverance. Despite whatever darkness life throws into the mix, a return to music is what keeps balance.