Fork In The Road Band Takes A Lot Of Forks To Become A Band

Could all of this be a coincidence?

(The following story was submitted by Dan Allen, a member of the Fork In The Road Band in Logan, Iowa. They are a country rock band.  www.myspace.com/forkintheroad)

Fork in the Road has both a geographic and ironic meaning to us. The obvious one is that I actually live between the forks of two highways in Logan, Iowa. The locals call it “The Fork.” That’s where our band practices and writes music.

How we came to be a band involves a lot of fateful events, timing and locations. The guys in the band are all from the small town of Logan, Iowa. We went to high school together, played music, sports, and hung out a lot. Ryan Michael (bass player) and myself (Lead Guitar, vocals) have been playing together in bands since our early teens. We continued to play together throughout high school and college.

After college, we decided to try our talents in the Nashville music scene. We met up with high school friend Andy Makey (lead vocals/guitar) in Nashville. He was scheduled to be out of the Marines by the time we moved to there. That day came and we all were in our place. At first, it was great because we discovered we had similar taste in music. In high school, Andy was never a part of our band, but was an accomplished singer/actor in the school musicals. In the Marines, he picked up the acoustic guitar. We were impressed. This all had the makings of a great start for our band but it wasn’t meant to be.

After a fallout with another band member who wasn’t from Logan, the band split up and we went our separate ways. Andy moved to Northern California briefly as he was recalled to Marines when the Iraq war broke out. I moved back home with my tail between my legs and not a penny in my pocket.

Back in Logan, I played around with some local cover bands in the Omaha scene, nothing more than a little spending money. Andy was released from the Marines a few months later, and Ryan moved home from Nashville within two weeks of that. We reunited as friends at “The Fork” where we all shared stories about our experiences. At first, it was just great to get back together with my pals.

We really didn’t set out to play music again until we decided to have an “open jam” at one of the local bars. We invited all of our musician friends to come out and jam with us. After a couple of these sessions, we started to call the jams Fork in the Road productions. Soon after that, we knew the core of these jams had been established…we really were a band again.

Andy, Ryan, and I then set out to find a drummer. On New Year’s Eve 2004, Fork the Road  Band was born. We have since replaced our old drummer, who was not from Logan, with one who is. We are now an all Logan band. This last New Year’s Eve we celebrated 5 years of the Fork in the Road Band. It’s amazing how many forks we took that all lead us back to Logan and back into a band together.

When we set out to do this, we had to make the choice of sacrificing our lives yet again for music, or choosing the common direction of any stereotypical small town person. We’ll needless to say we feel we made the right decision!