Spencer Sharpe

I was born in Tulsa, OK, and have thought about leaving many times, but still remain here and probably will for quite a while. My music career began when I was a child. For years I had said that I was going to be a musician someday.

My Freshman year of high-school, I started listening to slightly better music than what I had grown up on. I thought Coldplay was a "cool" band, rather than a band that everyone and their mother listened to. Bands like Coldplay and Damien Rice, and most of all, my good friend to this day, Chris McLeod, influenced my songwriting in huge ways. I understood what it meant to write music. It was supposed to be your flesh pouring out to paper and into melodies.

Once I was 15, although not being able to drive, I was gigging out quite frequently. I bet my parents loved helping me lug bass cabs in and out of their Tahoe. I started playing bass for the band, Monaphore, which was a project of my now good friend, Jordan McLeod. We played around a lot and I met a lot of people and began to understand what the local music market was about and what it means to be a band in a city like Tulsa. Unfortunately, we went through a lot of lineup changes other than myself, and our style changed drastically in a direction of which I was not as interested in. However, playing in Monaphore was a great experience and gave me the opportunity to share a stage with nationally known act, Edison Glass, as well as local great (now located in Portland), Black Swan (now called No Kind of Rider).

Music took a turn in the right direction for me. I was writing more music than I ever had before and I began playing in coffee shops in Tulsa every single weekend. I did this for an entire summer, and I think it was really beneficial.

Fall of 2007, my Junior year of high-school, I re-united with my old friend, co-musician, and co-Monaphore member, Jacob Voth, and our new acquaintance Adam Hunt. We combined the solo-projects of Adam and I, and even some writings of Jacob, and became a "folk-rock trio" called Aspen Branch. We had a lot of fun and played some shows, and even opened for national acts such as The New Frontiers (Dallas), Quiet Company (Austin), Alive In Wild Paint (Phoenix), and 2 Sweet (Chicago).

While we didn't officially break up for a while, when Jacob moved to Washington D.C., It think a lot of the heart behind the music was gone. Adam and I played a couple more shows with a fill-in drummer, and many acoustic shows at coffee shops, but it wasn't a band as much as it was two guys teaching each other how to play the songs we had written. Over time, we slowly started playing less, and never had a formal breakup.

One thing that triggered me being more interested in my solo project again was that I had started seriously recording. Spring and Summer of 2008, I recorded what I eventually called "Hemming The Seams" which was a 3-track EP that I released two days after my 18th birthday in October of 2008. Fall of 2008 into Spring of 2009, I continued playing local shows and getting my name out in the real local scene. Soon after, I decided to record 3 more tracks to add the the Hemming The Seams EP. It is a new disc although containing the same artwork, just 3 new tracks and different packaging. I nicknamed it "Hemming The Seams 2.0". It was released June of 2009.

In addition to solo writing, I have been writing with Jordan McLeod and for our new project, Leiderport which is becoming present in the Tulsa music scene.

In addition to Liederport, I now perform full-band as Spencer Sharpe & The Thunder Clouds.

Currently, I am still playing shows in Tulsa and touring and furthering my studies at the University level, majoring in Music Technology.

Thanks for listening to the music. This is just a little of where it came from.

My influences include: Death Cab For Cutie, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Bright Eyes, Gillian Welch, Page France, and Chris McLeod.