Hey Seawolf Nation, Schuyler Hemmerdinger (’08) here. I realized that It’s been a while since I checked in with you, so I figured “hey, no better time than the present!” You may remember me as that kid with the long hair that was always playing a song at All School Meeting or longboarding back and forth between Daggett and the Academic Center on free periods.
It’s crazy to think that was eight years ago, I don’t feel much different from those days.
Thinking back on it I guess a lot of things about my life have changed since walking across the stage (hair length, preferred method of transportation, etc.), but there has always been one thing that remained constant – there has been a Seawolf beside me every time I look around.
After Tabor, I followed my gut to New Orleans to enroll at Tulane University. Having been to the city only twice and having never stepped foot on campus until I rolled up with my duffel bag and guitar in hand, one could argue it wasn’t the safest move for a northeastern educated California kid with no ties to the south.
But the words of encouragement from a few trustworthy Seawolves (*cough Conley cough*…) was all I needed to set my sights on the Big Easy, and it was the single best decision I have ever made. As a lover of music, culture, (and butter), New Orleans was my mecca— blues and jazz emanating from every open window, strangers high-fiving and shouting “Who Dat?!” as they pass each other in the streets, all while set against the backdrop of the most culturally enriching and socio-politically complicated place I had ever been. That is, until I moved to Manhattan.
I spent the summer after undergrad at my family home on Cape Cod as a deckhand on a private yacht contemplating my next move. Gap year and grad school? Move back to NOLA for music and crawfish? Towards the end of that summer I met an accomplished music producer through the family for whom I’d spent the summer tending sheets and climbing the mast. She and I spoke about careers in music and the uncertainty of my plans and it was this conversation that planted the seed—why not New York? Nearly all of my musical favorites had cut their teeth in the Village, “so,” I thought, “if I am serious about making music my raison d’etre, shouldn’t that be where I go?”
So I did, trading in the Big Easy for the Big Apple, and for two years I honed my skills as a songwriter in the many of the same clubs where my heroes had done the same. It was a time of unparalleled excitement, inspired and chasing a dream, frequently meeting up with old friends and roommates from Tabor, occasionally (literally) stumbling into Tabor alumnae on crowded subway cars and train stations and knowing that the same reasoning that had brought me to the big city had brought them as well— we were compatriots in an otherwise anonymous city bound together by a little school by the sea.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s all well and good, but how does any of this relate to my life now? Well, I returned home to Cape Cod in the spring of 2014, immersed myself in the thriving local music scene, and began crowdfunding for my first EP (mini-CD) in January of 2015. The 4 song album was recorded between March and August of that year at Brick Hill Studios, co-produced by Grammy-nominated producer Jon Evans (nominated for his work with Tori Amos) and me.
Last night, after years of dreaming about it, months recording/post-production/pressing discs and weeks promoting the event, I released that album and played three full sets to a packed house of family, friends, and fans. The night was an absolute gas, but like all good things, it too came to a close. As I packed my gear in the now nearly empty tavern I heard a voice from behind me ask politely “excuse me, did you go to Tabor?” Of course, a Seawolf.
For more information on Schuyler’s new album (available now on iTunes and Spotify) and upcoming shows/ tour dates, please visit www.schuylergrantmusic.com.
Photo Credits (from top to bottom): Geofferey C Bassett, Ben Nugent, Geofferey C Bassett
