After years of watching his father play guitar, Ian McDeid was in Arizona when he picked up a guitar and began to teach himself, through trial and error, how to play. Now a junior at CRHS and in a band with his dad, McDeid seems as if he has got the formula to creating music figured out, declaring, “All you really need are 3 chords and a story to tell.” The statement he’s trying to make with his music is just as simple. “Just listen to it and enjoy it,” he says.

The topics of his music are not as set in stone. His inspiration often comes from his environment, everyday experiences, friends, and just about everything else. Even with a wide variety of topics to choose from, McDeid still gets writer’s block, noting that it is one challenge he often faces when making music, but every now and then, a wave of inspiration breaks through. “I can go through a period of nothing then a period of everything,” he explains. For McDeid, music is a way to express himself and get out what he wants to say, commenting, “Music is my diary.” Although McDeid feels the emotion of the song he is currently working on, he wants people to know that “…you can listen to it with any feeling, any emotion.”

He may only be a junior, but McDeid can see himself 50 years in the future, still in a band. He is planning on pursuing teaching as a career, but would not give up performing for the world. “I love performing for people, seeing their faces change and their emotions…I love their reactions,” he says with a smile on his face. Copy and Paste, McDeid’s band with his dad, have an EP coming out soon that might be heard live at one of their gigs or on his soundcloud.