From the beginning John Vesely never planned beyond his bass guitar. Playing bass in local rock bands was a natural for him. Little did he know that there was another vessel to propel his music forward!

Secondhand Serenade - A Love Song

"It's not always clear where the next step will lead, but that's what keeps us hanging on, patiently anticipating the moves of Secondhand Serenade."

From the beginning John Vesely never planned beyond his bass guitar. Playing bass in local rock bands was a natural for him. Little did he know that there was another vessel to propel his music forward!

Secondhand Serenade - The beginning

John Vesely came to using the pseudonym Secondhand Serenade in 2004. Getting into music at the age of 12, John played bass with pop, rock, and hardcore rock bands around the San Francisco Bay area of California for 8 years before meeting his wife Candice. In his own words, "serenading her with a bass guitar was out of the question", so he began writing some songs for his new instrument of choice, an acoustic guitar. Secondhand Serenade refers to his initial feeling that the music and songs were serenades to Candice, she as his muse, and "I sing the songs to my wife. Everyone else gets the Secondhand Serenade."

Compiling his original material and scraping up enough in funding to rent studio time John recorded his debut solo acoustic 10 track album Awake, during the summer of 2005. He put together a MySpace page and began marketing his music with innately immediate popularity. In a short time Secondhand Serenade was #1 of the unsigned bands and the only one to have a DC in the top 100 Alternative on iTunes. After releasing demos on Yahoo! Launch, he claimed the Adult Alternative #1 spot also. Ever an Entrepreneur, John sold his cd via mail using a PayPal account before singing with TuneCore, which in turn made his music available in the iTunes venue. Still in 2006, album plays were in the millions, download and merchandise sales were in the 5 digit per month range, and he sold over 15,000 copies of his album, all out of their own home.

Bounding ahead

Signing with Glassnotes Records in 2006 gave Secondhand Serenade a label for the re-release of Awake, debuting as #16, moving up to #3, on Billboards Top Heatseekers, #164 on Billboard 200, and #19 on Independent Albums charts. To market this debut, he was featured on MTV, AOL Music, Yahoo! Music, and appeared on Conan O'Brien's late night show. Popularity rising, John was in demand and played many shows, music festivals, and toured with popular bands. Awake spawned only one single release, Vulnerable, which also charted will and brought Frank Borin to create a music video.

Secondhand Serenade's sophomore album, A Twist in My Story, was released in February 2008. Twist featured several songs from the prior album with a full band instead of the multi-tracked vocals and synthetic mixing previously used. In January, Single Fall for You was released, the music video was premiered on TRL, and the album was leaked and was available for download before the official release date. Lukas Vesely (his brother), John Harvey, Ryan Cook, and Tom Breyfogle became Secondhand Serenade's touring band and the spring months were spent touring in support of Twist. Fall for You made Platinum in November and was still #13 on American Top 40 on the December 5^th chart.

Still on the go

The video Maybe was released on Secondhand Serenades MySpace page telling fans about the trips and concerts the world over. A Twist in My Story (Deluxe Edition) with 5 bonus tracks, Your Call, Fall for You (Acoustic), Like a Knife (Acoustic), Last Time, and Fix you, was released on February 3, 2009.

The newest release is planned for 2010, possibly titled Partly Liars, is touted to be a much more upbeat musical style than Secondhand Serenade has been known for.

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