The Day Music Changed My Life (Adam Leeds)
People often ask me how I got into music.
Most people assume I grew up with a guitar in my hands or always knew I wanted to be a musician. The truth is a lot simpler than that.
It all started on the first day of ninth grade.
I had just started a new high school in Manhattan and didn’t know many people. Like most freshmen, I was trying to figure out where I fit in. During the school assembly, a band made up of students walked onto the stage. They had all gone to middle school together, so they were already “the cool kids.” As soon as they started playing, the room erupted. Everyone was cheering, especially the girls.
I remember thinking one thing:
“I need to do that.”
At the time, I thought I wanted the attention.
Looking back, I think I was really searching for somewhere to belong.
Growing Up in New York City
I was born in Manhattan on December 19, 1987, and spent the first twenty-five years of my life there before moving to Nashville in 2013.
Growing up in New York City was incredible. Museums, Broadway shows, amazing restaurants, live music, and every type of culture imaginable were all part of everyday life. Creativity surrounded me long before I realized how much it would shape who I became.
Home life was a little more complicated.
My parents divorced before I was a year old, and they spent much of my childhood in and out of court. I lived primarily with my mom and saw my dad every other weekend. Like a lot of kids in similar situations, I spent years trying to figure things out.
One constant, though, was music.
My mom loved Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and just about every oldies station you could find. My grandfather sang for fun and sounded remarkably like Frank Sinatra. Several relatives on my mom’s side played instruments like violin and mandolin.
My dad had played guitar and bass in high school. Years later, after I had already started discovering music on my own, he introduced me to artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Allman Brothers, and blues legends like B.B. King, Albert King, and Freddie King.
Looking back, music had always been around me.
I just hadn’t discovered it for myself yet.
Discovering Guitar
Ironically, music wasn’t my first passion.
Cooking was.
My mom worked incredibly hard, so I spent a lot of afternoons home alone after school. I loved surprising her by making dinner before she got home. Looking back, I think I’ve always enjoyed creating something that makes other people happy.
Eventually, that creativity found a new outlet.
Around the age of twelve or thirteen, I started taking guitar lessons. My first guitar was a pretty beat-up ESP that I eventually sold so I could buy a Vox wah pedal. It probably wasn’t the smartest financial decision, but at the time it felt completely worth it.
As it became obvious I wasn’t giving up on guitar anytime soon, my parents helped me buy my first real instrument—a honey blonde 2006 Fender Highway One Stratocaster.
I still own it today.
It’s not the most valuable guitar I have, but it will always be one of my favorites because it reminds me where everything started.
Falling in Love with Music
One of the biggest influences on my musical life wasn’t a famous musician.
It was my friend Alex.
We met on that very first day of high school, and he completely opened my eyes to music. Alex collected CDs, knew more about Bob Dylan than anyone I’ve ever met, and introduced me to artists I’d never have found on my own.
We’d spend hours listening to records and talking about music.
Here’s a confession…
The first time I heard Jimi Hendrix, I thought he was a white guy.
Thankfully, Alex corrected me.
Today, Hendrix is one of my biggest influences as a guitarist.
Because of those conversations, I fell in love with blues, jazz, funk, and artists like Eric Clapton, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, Robert Johnson, and so many others. I joined the jazz ensemble in high school and spent countless hours learning songs by ear instead of just reading music.
Somewhere along the way, music stopped being a hobby.
It became part of who I was.
The Adam Morgan Band
Like most teenagers who fall in love with music, I wanted to start a band.
So we did.
In true teenage fashion, we called it The Adam Morgan Band.
We were heavily influenced by funk bands like Soulive and Lettuce, mixed with blues, jazz, and the Allman Brothers. Since you can’t exactly rehearse with a full band in a Manhattan apartment, we’d rent rehearsal spaces around the city and spend entire weekends playing together.
We played school talent shows, Battle of the Bands competitions, small clubs around Manhattan, and eventually venues like The Knitting Factory.
Did we ever win Battle of the Bands?
No.
But honestly, that’s not what I remember.
I remember carrying gear through New York City, laughing with my friends between songs, and getting just a little more comfortable on stage every time we played.
Playing live taught me one of the biggest lessons of my life:
The things that seem the scariest often become the things you end up loving the most.
The Person Who Believed in Me
There was one person who encouraged me more than anyone else.
My stepdad.
He used to call me “Clapton.”
Whether I deserved the nickname didn’t matter. He believed in me, and that meant everything.
Whenever we’d hear live music, he’d tell the band they had to let me sit in and play.
One memory has stayed with me for years.
We were traveling one summer and boarded a ferry where a musician was performing. My stepdad convinced him to let me play a few songs.
I honestly don’t remember what I played.
I don’t even remember how well I played.
What I remember is how I felt.
I felt seen.
I felt confident.
I felt like I belonged.
He also helped me buy my Sadowsky guitar, which is still one of my favorite instruments I own. Not because of the guitar itself, but because every time I play it, I think of him.
I lost my stepdad when I was twenty-one years old.
His encouragement has never left me.
Looking Back
When I think about my journey, I don’t just think about guitars, bands, or the songs I learned.
I think about what music gave me.
Growing up, music became my outlet. When I struggled with everything surrounding my parents’ divorce, I’d play the blues. When I couldn’t find the right words, my guitar seemed to find them for me.
Music taught me how to express myself.
It taught me how to connect with people.
It gave me confidence, lifelong friendships, and a sense of purpose during a time when I needed it most.
That freshman assembly didn’t just inspire me to pick up a guitar.
It changed the direction of my life.
Years later, that same passion would lead me into music production, recording, and eventually building a career helping other musicians bring their own ideas to life.
But before any of that happened, I was just a kid sitting in a school auditorium in Manhattan, hoping to find where I belonged.
Looking back, I realize I did.