I read it, laughed and signed my life away to my creative side of life... since I am LIVING in NASHVILLE and jump starting a brand new NSAI CHAPTER in the HENDERSONVILLE (JOHNNY CASH'S town) and GALLATIN area it was only the right kewl thang to do...so here I am! (oh, btw NSAI meetings will be held at a great VENUE on the 3rd SAT of the month at THE BEACH in GALLATIN TNN. and because we are all musicians and like to sleep in on SATURDAY'S zzzzzz (alarm clock) coffee, shower.... ahhhhhh the starting time will be at 1:00 pm and go till 3 ish or longer

Since whenever I get together with a co-writer, Pro or otherwise, the first question is usually ... so tell me a little bit about yourself, what was it like when you were growing up?! I decided to fill you in on a little background and try not to write what is on my myspace etc. So that if and when we get together to collaborate... we can talk about other things! LO

Anyway, I grew up a farm kid just off of RT 66 in a little town called Plainfield Illinois, with my two sisters... the third was way rebellious and already out on her own.

I was rock and roll in my bedroom and country in the car, my Mom and Dad usually listened to whatever was on WMAQ and I was a WLS/WCFL kind of girl, unless we were listening to the Cubs game, then we were WMRO all the way... we would get all excited when Harry Caray would yell "Holy Cow... it's outta there!" I even have a baseball signed by the 69 Cubs team!

Us girls would climb trees, have watermelon seed fights, chase lightning bugs as well as other things and tend to the animals in the barns!

I arrived in Nashville for the first time on 05 during Hurricane Katrina with three little things we loved doing when we were younger written on a slip of paper (climbing trees,spittin watermelon seeds and chasing lightning bugs) and Hit songwriter/teacher extraordinaire Marc-Alan Barnette and I co-wrote one of my signature songs the 2nd day I was in Nashville, taking those 3 lines right out of my childhood... the song is called THATS STILL ME and my band THE EZY RYDERS and I are on a youtube playing the song live as well! Weekends were for getting house chores done on Saturday, than we went to the movies with our mom or she would drop us off at the theater, sometimes we would have a friend or two spend the night and my friends and I, who were Cheap Trick freaks would listen to Their music and some of our other favorites, like the Stones,Bad Company,Kiss,Boston,Styx,Journey, Linda Ronstadt and of course Heart a major band that later in life I would get to know as personal friends and two even play on my cd... how kewl is that! (sorry guys, I don't know the girls personally, but I have been on stage with some of the founding members while living in Seattle) My kid sister listened to The Statler Brothers, Glen Campbell, The Gatlin Brothers and Tanya Tucker and we shared a bedroom so as you see, I have had a lot of rock influences in my life with kind of a country flair woven in! Although I was constantly listening to Mac davis, Kris Kristofferson and our Dad and all of us listened to Jerry Reed, Merle, Johnny Paycheck and Johnny Cash and a lot of woman of Country music. We were on the softball team for our 4 H team and our Dad was our coach! So as you see, I was brought up with good old Midwestern roots! I wrote my first song in the summer when I was about 15 1/2 (that story is on my website/myspace and after High School I joined the Army and served my Country for 3 years stationed in Germany. Came out and became part of the Music family in Seattle! I was also recording secretary for a few great Non-Profit organizations and now I split my time between Nashville/Seattle/PA and LA for work and home is where my Mom and Dad live and my Zip Code is where my Hubby is! whew I thought I was going to write the short version...if ya wanna still see more I also Live in GOOGLE LAND! just google me! Take care ya'll and I so look forward to us writing and playing out together or just enjoying each others music! hugggz :).................< KK Ryder