Musician Carry Pierce started out in music when he first got a few friends together in high school and formed a garage band. Despite not being a big fan of playing in bands, he still wished to host a battle of the bands, wanting to bring musicians together from across the community, and ended up getting about 10 submissions. 

They ended up picking about four of the bands that wanted to play. Yet they didn’t have a PA system, so they reached out to a professional band in their town and asked to use theirs. They agreed, getting their band some recognition within the high school and surrounding community.

During his senior year, Pierce got accepted into SMU for acting. While not wishing to play music as much anymore, he still brought his acoustic guitar down to SMU with him. While he attended SMU for acting, which was his passion at the time, something changed. While in class, he made a new friend, Jack O’Neil. Coincidentally, they both had guitars and liked to play. Pierce and O’Neil started to play together, often. 

Over the summers, they started to create mixtapes of songs they wanted to learn and play. Later, in the fall, the two wanted to jam more but had nowhere to play.  They started playing in backyards, gaining a bit of recognition. Then a bit later on, an outgoing senior offered his gig at Moody’s Pub, across the street from Central Market. While it was an extremely low paying gig, they accepted without hesitation.

Pierce and O’Niel loved the gig. They loved having a place to come every week to just play. They would play for a full bar, and they would play when nobody was there. They’d always do it, and because of this gig, they came up with their first song, “Three of Us in a Boat,” based on a failed relationship with a girlfriend in high school. 

Kids liked it so much, so they started coming up to Pierce and O’Neil, asking them what song it was and if they had it on a cassette somewhere. This inspired the duo to start making more songs and putting them on cassettes, selling them out of their cars and giving them to other people to sell. In total, there were about 50,000 cassettes and tapes sold over a few years, resulting in growing popularity around the nation. 

The duo got picked up by some important people in the music industry, which allowed Pierce and O’Neil to spread their music around the country. They went on multiple tours around the country, meeting and playing with other famous musicians. The two are still playing together, going on tours now and then, and making songs together.

The story of the duo is inspiring, it shows that you can come from almost nothing, and become extremely successful. Yet, you have to put in the effort, if you’re willing to put in the effort, you will get the benefits and rewards of your work.