Worthy representatives of the acoustic rock genre, Secondhand Serenade was formed in 2004 in Menlo Park, California by vocalist and guitarist John Vesely. John was raised in the San Francisco bay area, starting point of great musicians and music trends for decades.
Furthermore, John's father was a professional jazz musician that surely influenced his own musician career, providing John Vasely with his own seal. Although, the band is mostly a solo project, other fellow friends joined him on this venture to support Vasely on this enterprise.
John Vesely began to develop his own rock identity as an autobiographical songwriter and named his band inspired by his wife Candice and son Jake. Secondhand Serenade's debut album, however, it was not released until 2005 through MySpace and iTunes websites.
Of course, Vesely, who was born in November of 1980, played extensively with a variety of San Francisco bands before Secondhand Serenade, and continued doing this for years before putting together a full-length recording.
The Secondhand Serenade's debut album, "Awake", was self-released and shortly afterwards the band signed to Glassnote Records, a New Yorkian company that claimed to be distributor of Warner Bros' Indie recordings.
Questioned during an interview about the band's name Vesely declared that Secondhand Serenade was also one of the first autobiographical songs he had ever written.
In February 2007, Glassnote Records released an expanded version of Secondhand Serenade's debut album adding two extra tracks, in which the music is mostly influenced by artist such as Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional band.
Secondhand Serenade sold about 73,000 copies of the digital recordings released on the Internet and over 10,000 copies of the "Awake" album alone, according to the prestigious Nielsen SoundScan.
Secondhand Serenade's "Awake" peaked at number 16 on both the Billboards and Heatseekers top charts. After achieving success, John Vesely has also been featured on "You Hear It First" (MTV), "Who's Next?" (Yahoo! Music), and AOL Music's "Breakers" spots.
Actually, John Vasely is working on a new Secondhand Serenade's album scheduled to be released sometime near the end of 2007. In the mean time, the single "Vulnerable" is one of the most popular videos accessed through YouTube's web site, and his music has hit the "Top Unsigned Artists" list at MySpace and iTunes Top 100.
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