Brad Avery in bands during the early 90s

Well, looks like I'm back again. It's been quite a while since my last post. The past year or so, I didn't really know what to post. Then I got this idea that I could do some re-runs of old posts, maybe expand them a little bit. So here I am, blogging again.

We're starting these re-runs with something really old school. I posted some of this back in 2013, but now I can share some more stuff. In this post we're going back all the way to the early 90s, when Brad was 20ish and still had his sweepin' long hair. I've always had a fondness for the 80s/90s era and the past always kind of intrigues me, so I thought it might be cool to share the stuff I've found from Brad in bands during the early 90s, before he moved on to Third Day. I'm including all kinds of cool things such as old videos, photographs, newspaper articles and interviews.

Okay, first things first. Obviously, Brad has been in some bands before Third Day. This is what he said in an old interview about him being in those bands:

"I had the opportunity to play in some bands in Illinois (most notably Fields of Youth and Skin King) but after those I toured for a couple of years with a couple Top 40 / Rock cover (hair) bands from Florida called FreeFare and XL."

FreeFare and XL were bands that were put together by a talent company called Young American Showcase.

Another thing Brad said about being in these bands was this, taken from an interview he did with Epiphone:

"I didn't jump into my first band until my freshman year of college when I did some touring with a company out of Florida. We did assemblies in schools using pop music to promote self esteem and stay away from drugs and alcohol themes. That's where I really cut my teeth. I was forced to learn pop music and how to play leads since I was the only guitarist in the band and that forced me to start developing my own style and my own voice on guitar. I did it for 2 years and it was grueling! Basically we did three shows a day. We'd set up in the morning at a school, do a show, tear down and go to the next school for an after lunch show, then do another one that night! We did about 500 shows per year for 2 years so it was a lot of playing, traveling and little sleep! It taught me a lot, including how to get along with people since we were a bunch of guys from all different backgrounds. During my second year, not only was I a performer but a performing manager as well so I learned a lot about PR. That allowed me to kind of get my head around the business side of things too."

These are photo's which I found on eBay a couple of years ago. They're photos from a Fields of Youth tape called Secret Things. This tape was released in August 1992. The ad isn't on eBay anymore, but I've still got the photos. You can see the cover, the tracklist, some of the lyrics, who was in the band, who the band thanks and a small photo of the band. These images are rather small, but you can click any image to enlarge it.

I haven't been able to find tracks from the Secret Things tape, but I do have some other cool things for you. (Kerry Cox, thank you so much for your help on this post!) First off, here is a Fields of Youth song called "Fear to Fly". It was the ninth track from their album "The Embrace" (1993).

The second thing I have is even more fun. These are video recordings from two of the church practices/performances Fields of Youth did in the early 90s. I do not own these videos, all rights reserved to Mike Gallas.

Okay, on to the Young American Showcase stuff. This is a video recorded in 1991 at Currituck High School. Brad is playing for Free Fare (one of the bands put together by Young American Showcase). Brad is wearing a white T-shirt and playing a pink guitar.

Below you can find a bunch of photos of Brad when he was playing for Young American Showcase. (Thanks a lot, Troy Stone!) Oh, I hope you don't mind scrolling.. Blogger won't let me post these images in a neat gallery or something like that. And - same as always - , just click these images if you want to enlarge them.

Brad is the second person from the right.

Brad is the second person from the right.

Brad is the second person from the left in the back row.

Brad on the left.

Brad on the left.

Brad on the right.

Brad is in the back row, second person from the left.

Yep, that's Brad.

Brad is the second person from the right.

Brad is the second person from the right.

Brad on the left.

Brad on the left.

Last of all, I have two newspaper articles in which Brad was mentioned when he was playing for Young American Showcase. The first one is an article about Free Fare. It was in the Sasota Herald Tribune from February 2, 1991. 

 The second article is an article about XL.

This was all of the stuff I have collected over the years. I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed creating it. Of course, I also still take requests for blogposts, you can send those over to bradaveryfanbase@outlook.com. You can also send me random comments, suggestions or questions about Brad or my blog, share your story, tell me what kind of content you'd like me to post or tell me whatever you like. Anything is welcome.

Take care!