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In My Life: The Story of Eric Quillington (Part One)  (Childhood pictures of Eric 'Quillington' Johnson)Introduction (By Jason Smith)
“The thing that puts Eric in a different category from most modern musicians is that he’s actually an artist. The music he makes can do so much more than just please your ears. He has contributed so much for the music industry. The first time I REALLY became aware of Eric, and of Infinite in fact, was with the release of Blue Nebula. I was actually backstage whilst on a tour, and I turned the radio on to see what was happening. They played Supernova and I was like “holy shit...”. After the show that night, I immediately looked up Infinite and saw what they were all about. I looked at some more of their songs on YouTube, and realised that Infinite were one of the best bands in years. I think the song that made me go onto their website and get in touch with them was 0.9 Pelnav. What a fucking tune, it puts Mind to shame. After that, I decided that I was going to try and get into touch and so I posted about how much I liked their music on their website.
The first time I met him in person was, I think, at The Dirty Bastard. That was a very weird night. I was with Aaron, having a casual drink, and we started talking to Eric. I recognised him straight away, since I was well into Infinite by that point. I say that night is weird because the next thing I know, we’re on the news involved in a murder case. Some rapper called Yung Deez, I dunno... Anyway, we sorta became good friends in the weeks following that. I think we became REALLY good friends in another incident in The Dirty Bastard, where we all got drunk out of our minds with Stacey Walton and Tim Dunn and “allegedly” thought the world was being taken over by robots. Don’t ask me, I haven’t got a clue, but apparently that’s what happened.
We’ve also produced a lot of stuff together. From Stacey Walton (which we did with Danny Allen, another legendary producer) to Fathers of Fury, we’ve produced it. This mans talents seemingly never end. I helped with Danny Allen in producing Infinite's newest album Midnight Skies, which is probably the greatest thing, ever. It’s definitely my producing highlight.
Eric is a genius, a beacon of light in a bland, dark world of music. He is an amazing human being and an amazing musician. There are very few people who have his talent, he’s like a modern day John Lennon. Above all that, he’s as great a friend as you’re ever likely to have.”
Early Days
Kelly Bethamy had something of a reputation in college. She was in the top of her class when it came to grades, but seemed to waste her intellect on the cheap thrill of drugs and sex. A bit of a classic case; would’ve had a highly respected career as a neurosurgeon if she’d only sorted out her priorities. When Kelly was five-years-old, her mother overdosed on pills. Suicide and death ran in her family, and it’s quite possible that she wanted to kill herself through pleasure. Despite all her blessings and talents, Kelly never realized how beautiful she was. Medical school kept her in balance, though. Despite all her self-destructive tendencies, Kelly still thrived for the future. She was a living contradiction, and managed to pass that undesirable trait along to her first-born son. When she was in Medical School, life was fine; during the summer, however, a different side came out to play. During the third week of July, Kelly Bethamy went to a bit of a party, and met a low-life bastard by the name of Mike Johnson. They were worlds apart, but still somewhat similar; Johnson, a high school drop-out, shared Kelly’s desire for failure. But, while Kelly’s decision to achieve failure was inspired by self-loathing, Mike’s stemmed from apathy and embarrassingly high levels of laziness. The reasons behind their motives didn’t matter; about eight months after their careless one-night stand, I was born into the world.
My mother, Kelly, named me Eric James Johnson. My mother was raised to be a moral Christian (yes, I'm aware of the contradictions), so I got the bastard’s last name because of her desire to have a baby out of wedlock. In a way, she changed after I was born; after so long, she’d finally found meaning to her life. As a newborn child, I helped to erase my mother’s desire for oblivion. Always found it somewhat ironic that her choice of self-destruction ended up giving her a reason to stay alive. Of course, this hope came from the most unfortunate of circumstances, and almost destroyed any chance of a successful future. While she slaved away at finishing up Medical School, my drunk of a father spent most nights at the local bar. By now, he’d realized how much of a pathetic nobody he was, and tried to forget about this fact by guzzling down alcohol. I thankfully don’t carry too many memories of Mike, because he left my mother when I was only five years old. As a result, my childhood is left mostly untainted by his presence; my earliest memory is of my mom reading me a bed time story. Try not to gag at that overly-cute comment.
When I was about seven, my mom found another man. Richard Lithe, a fellow Doctor, was the caring and intelligent kind of person that Mike could never be. Never really saw that side of him, though; to him, I was always the reminder of mom’s less-than-admirable past. He’d never tell me that he felt that way, his manners and charm wouldn’t allow that, but I could always tell of his feelings from the way he looked at me from time-to-time. About a year after they were married, my mother gave birth to John Lithe. My half-brother is an infinitely better person than me based solely on genetics; John had the grace and intelligence of Richard, while I was stuck with the fear that I’d grow up to be like my own father.
By the unspoken choice of Richard, I remained as Eric Johnson. Not being a ‘Lithe’ is so much more painful than it sounds, but I managed to live up to my father’s name pretty well during the first several years of school. Tormenting the other kids (wedgies, swirlies, fights on the playground) was my favorite past-time in Elementary School, largely due to the fact that I had no discernable talents or intellect and was receiving sub-par grades as a result. The one thing I did possess was leadership qualities, which was used to my advantage during my infamous schoolyard reign of terror. My gang of ‘friends’ were picked manly by their appearance; only the tough (and ugly) looking boys were allowed into my group. Never really considered them to be that close to me, they were always kind of like pawns. It didn't matter how I felt, because they had unswerving allegiance; I was their kingpin, and all lunch-money taken from the other kids went directly to me. Yours truly was a criminal mastermind, and a developing frontman, before he even hit sixth-grade.
When little John was only four, he decided that he wanted to be the next Mozart. My (or more accurately: his) parents decided to fuel his eager and creative mind by buying a piano. A four-year-old’s Christmas gift of a Grand Piano should give you a pretty good idea of how bizarre my family life was, and the extent that my younger brother was spoiled. I played the piano from time-to-time when I thought nobody else could catch me, and something slowly started to click in my mind. Music just made sense to me, in a way that schoolwork and my own life never did. I finally found something I was good at, and would often show off my talent to my family. Even so, the ‘cool’ instrument to me always seemed to be the electric guitar, and I was finally given one as a birthday gift when I was eleven years old. From the moment I learned my first chord, I was hooked; nothing else mattered, and bullying weaker kids for cheap thrills no longer seemed important. In addition, rock music began finding its way into my life. Even more interesting than the music, to me, were the musicians. They were worshipped like gods by their fans; as a result, I viewed them as such. After seeing several bands in concert, and taking note of my developing musical skills, I realized it was a possibility to become one of those ‘gods’. In my mind, it was the only way to avoid becoming a failure like my father. At the age of 14, I had already made up my mind about the future.
I, luckily, had the two skills necessary to achieve my goal. My leadership qualities were used to a much-lesser sinister motive this time around; instead of forming a group for a shock-and-awe campaign, this group would have the very simple motive of becoming the most successful rock-band in history. My skill at playing guitar was brought into play, but I never even considered singing for this band. I had at this time a passable singing voice, and some potential, but it always seemed to me like singing was too revealing. I gave that unwanted position to my then-best friend Alex Flux, and made it seem like a huge sacrifice on my part to convince him to take it. Alex, unfortunately, had almost no singing voice at all. The good news was that he could scream like none other, and the two of us slowly developed a sound around his voice. In a rather sadistic fashion, I recruited a bassist and a drummer with sub-par abilities in an attempt to make myself look better. The choice was a wrong one, and it showed; right from the beginning, the band Alpharian was god-awful. The only way to describe the sound was Nirvana-meets-screamo, and it was every bit as bad as that sounds. We barely got gigs, and the story of a bunch of 14-year-olds trying to be metalcore quickly made us the laughing stock of the town. For a while, it didn’t bother me; I was in a band, no matter how terrible it was.
Despite the small ray of sunshine Alpharian put into my life, everything else continued along in the same pointless fashion. My brother’s school marks were nothing short of brilliant, making my increasingly-dropping grades look worse by comparison. Richard and I were barely on speaking-terms, and my mom’s initial pride in my developing musical skills quickly turned to an uncomfortable indifference when she heard the horror that was Alpharian. My class-clown antics (which earned me respect and love from my classmates) and lethargic attitude towards school gave teachers all the proof they needed that I would not have a remarkable or successful future. I was a blemish on the other-wise perfect Lithe family, and was reminded of that fact almost every day.
About this time, I began to realize how much of an embarrassment Alpharian was. The band’s style of heavy-metal wasn’t something I wanted to play, and our horrid playing (mine included) hadn’t earned the respect or love from a single member in any audience. In many ways, we were falling apart; I often took my anger out on the bassist, Isaac Baker, which resulted in him quitting the band. Just as I was thinking of disbanding the band, salvation arrived in the form of Greg Oldson. Alex brought him in as Baker’s replacement, and I instantly took a bit of a disliking towards him. He was the star goalie of the school football (or as you Americans call it; soccer) team, and was on the honor roll. In those days, I had no idea why someone so talented would want to be in a band of misfits. So, my jealousy instantly formed into sarcasm, and I made the poor chap feel incredibly unwelcome during the first couple weeks.
All of that changed in the most unlikely of events. After one particular Alpharian gig, when I was sixteen years old, I felt particularly exhausted and wasted. Greg felt similar to my feelings in regards to the band, and all my troubles just came pouring out to him. Never really figured out why I opened up to him, but I told him everything; how I felt my sole talent was being wasted, how I was stuck with my bastard father’s last name, and how I was never a part of the ‘Lithe’ family. I'll never forget his response; “Then how about you just leave and start your own family? It could have some eccentric surname like Quillington, or something.” Edited by user 20 November 2010 04:28:40(UTC)
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Kid Anything- Indie/Britpop/Shoegaze; influenced by Sigur Ros, XXYYXX, Kanye West, Blur, Oasis (Bringing together an eclectic group of influences, Ulysses' songs are sung with carefree abandon by Nick Junk) Kurt Ulysses - Songwriter, Guitarist, Backup Vocalist Nick Junk - Vocals, Mojo Infinite- Alternative/Experimental Rock; influenced by Muse, Radiohead, and The Beatles (Known best for their experimental music and their frontman's eccentric behavior, the band disbanded after Eric Quillington's death to pursue solo careers or, in Matt Robert's case, peace of mind. Infinite released four albums over the course of their career; Blue Nebula, Midnight Skies, Insomnia, and Dancing about Architecture.) Eric Quillington (Deceased) - Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar, Piano, Primary Lyricist Matt Roberts - Bass Greg Oldson - Drums, Backup Vocals, Secondary Lyricist Amelia Florentine - Keyboards, Piano, Lyricist, Backup Vocals "When asked 'how do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time', and this answer is invariably dismissed. But that's all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope." - Stephen King |
