Derek was conceived sometime in the year 1979. He was born on May 29, 1980. By all accounts, the details of both occasions were pretty gross. His upbringing was fairly typical, living with his mother, father, and older brother. Not much of interest to his musical career (aside from his dad's record collection) happened until 1986, when Derek was given his first guitar as a Christmas present. His parents also gave his older brother (Dave) a guitar that year, and decided that Derek needed one too so he wouldn't whine too loudly. Such is the beginning of the journey.

Derek immediately had dreams of glory and rounded up some of the local neighborhood guys to form his first "band," called X-Treme Precaution. Crappy name aside, Derek and his friends plugged away. The first incarnation of the group included Derek, and his friends Marc Schneider (guitar) and Ryan Rhodes (drums...sort of...). At the same time, he met regularly with his friend Jason Myers (drums) to play some of the same songs, with a few different twists.

Neither incarnation of the group went anywhere, though the former line-up did manage to write a song or two.  In his sixth grade year, Derek befriended two other young men who had dreams of glory and "broke up" the "original" line-up of XTP. He began referring to the two new guys as "his band," and soon, that became true. In Derek's mind, X-Treme Precaution now included Mike Hutter (drums) and Brandon Urruela (guitar...sort of...). In Mike and Brandon's mind, they were planning on joining up with a guy named Nathan (whose last name had disappeared from Derek's mind, as of the time this page was written) to form a different band from what Derek envisioned, called R. M. I. (Reverse Mirror Image). Derek was smart enough to know that he had to make a power-play in order to keep working with these guys and immediately bought a bass, since none of the other guys played bass. With that, Nathan was out of the picture, and Derek became their bass player and vocalist.

In a short time, Derek and Mike parted ways with Brandon, deciding that he wasn't quite the accomplished guitarist he'd made himself out to be.  Derek, having entered Junior High by this time, was now going to the same school as an old friend, and one day on the bus asked Marc Schneider if he still played guitar. Marc's answer? "No."

Somehow, Derek convinced Marc to dust off his guitar (the details of that are also lost somewhere in the black hole that is Derek's mind--and he's only about 50% sure he was the one who convinced Marc to play again) and Marc showed up to "jam" with Derek and Mike one afternoon. With Derek not being a very good musician, and Brandon having been not-much-better than Derek, the slightly-out-of-practice Schneider seemed like a shredding God. After all, he knew how to play "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC. Mike (at that time, the only decent musician in the aforementioned bunch) quickly agreed to let Marc join the band, and R.M.I. had a new sound.

The trio worked together for a long while and polished up a fair amount of songs. After a year or two, Derek recommended a name change which the other two guys approved (surprising the crap out of Derek!). So, the band became union jack (yes, it's supposed to be lowercase). Many gigs followed at places like the now defunct Bernard Pub, Bastille's, and Club 367. For some reason, every time the group would establish a foothold at a club, it would soon close down. They tried not to take it personally.

union jack had a large following. Their rehearsals were always packed with friends, fans, and admirers. Pressure was building from any number of angles and the band soon imploded when a rift developed between Derek and Marc, which was devastating to both guys. Says Derek, "Marc was my best friend. At the time, I think I was a little bit mixed up because I'd just become a Christian and I was learning to live a whole new lifestyle--and not necessarily doing a great job of it. At the time, I probably thought I was taking noble steps but I was really alienating people who were close to me and cared about me. Now, I realize that whatever the major wedge was that came up between Marc and me; I was the one that put it there. I could blame it on any number of outside factors... Marc was about to graduate and Mike and I still had two more years... I was still confused and angry about my mom dying a couple of years before... The band was doing well, and we felt pressured to deliver our A-game all the time... But the truth is, I was self-righteous, a little depressed, and SIXTEEN...and that's a dangerous combination. So, I lost my best friend and my band...then went into exile."

(It is worth mentioning that Derek and Marc soon returned to being on friendly terms.  In fact, thanks to the advent of the internet, Derek and Marc still keep in touch via e-mail, websites, and blogs.  They'd probably call and visit as well, but Marc lives in New York and Derek lives in St. Louis.)

Derek worked on and off with his friend Vince Chandler in a more-or-less jam-project that they dubbed "Awake" after the Dream Theater album of the same name. Though Awake was fun and had some people in his circle of friends talking, Derek wasn't really doing any SERIOUS work as a musician, aside from playing bass at his church, and writing some cheesy songs on an old, badly-built acoustic guitar in his basement. Derek refers to himself as having been "not ready" to work with a group again.

Over time, Derek built up a large selection of Christian music, and began recording a solo CD. Though he worked on the project for a very long time with a LOT of people, the recordings have never been fully finished and released. However, it was the process of recording these early tracks that allowed Derek to find his voice as a musician. Recording on the since-dropped project wrapped about a week before Derek went to college.

As it happened, Derek HATED the college he chose to go to...so he spent most of his time skipping class and writing songs...but somehow managed not to entirely flunk out.  Says Derek, "I basically chose that school because I knew a couple of girls who were going there, and I thought they were pretty.  After realizing that I was there with poor motives, I fell into a pretty deep depression, hated being there, hated being alone, hated being the only Democrat on campus, and wrote a bunch of songs."  That bunch of songs would be the groundwork for Derek's first solo-release, "Grounds."  However, there are still a few steps between here and there.

Derek moved back home to St. Louis and set about the task of wasting his life.  He spent a year doing nothing except sitting on the couch and spending his father's money.  (How his dad put up with him during this period is anyone's guess...we're guessing he drank.  A lot.  You would, too.)  During this time, Derek's older brother, Dave, fell in love with the idea of putting together a band.  At first, the group was to be a band that played comedy songs and covers.  The group would have been called "Sheep Trick" in homage to Dave's then favorite band, Cheap Trick, and in reference to Dave's night-career as "The Sheepdog of Comedy."  (No, seriously...he was a comic, and that was his nickname.)  Derek was drafted to be in the act, but really had no interest in playing comedy-clubs or being in a cover band.  Sensible heads prevailed, and the two decided to write and play original rock music.

Dave and Derek decided to name the band Uncle Dick--to mixed reaction, even between the two of them.  The line-up was rounded out by the addition of Dave's friend of a couple-of-decades, Tim Heeley (drums) and their mutual friend Chris Teague (guitar).  (Derek played bass and Dave sang.  The songwriting duties were handled by Derek, with Dave picking up a lot of the lyric-writing.)  That line-up lasted for a short time, until Heeley grew frustrated with the group's lack of direction.  He soon left the band, and the other three cursed his name, but kept rehearsing, soon adopting drummer Thatcher Bell.  It would be under this line-up that the group would most frequently play and would attain most of its success.  However, some disagreement over musical direction and personal philosophy would soon lead to a parting of ways with Thatcher as well...and the group was re-joined by a re-energized Tim Heeley.  Shortly thereafter, the group was dealt its unofficial death-blow as Chris Teague's work schedule shifted to the point that he was forced to leave the band.  According to Derek, that was "the day the heart and soul of the group faded away."

The group would never recover from Teague's departure.  An attempt was made to keep going with a new guitarist named Jim Baker (no relation to the televangelist).  (On a side note, this was also the time-period when Derek began working with the Michael Feldman Group, whose story is located in the "discography" section of derekbrink.com.)  Jim was the wrong guy for the job.  Derek laments, "Bringing in Jim was always a mistake.  Tim and I pushed for him to join up, once we heard him, but didn't realize just how wrong he was for the group.  We were a rock/punk band, and he wanted to play metal.  He told us, at the time, that he'd scale it back and play more in our genre...but he either couldn't, wouldn't, or just-plain didn't WANT to do that.  We lost our entire fan base (who were embarrassed to be seeing an unwillingly faux-metal group in the 90s), lost our sound, and lost our integrity.  In fairness to Jim, he walked into a situation he didn't understand and just failed at adapting.  It's less his fault than it was ours.  We just never should have tried to continue after Chris left."

Amid many personal and professional differences, Jim was told that his services would no longer be needed.  Uncle Dick would only play one more show, with Derek on guitar, and Tim's brother Mike on bass.  (Some say this was the best the band ever sounded, though Derek tends to recall a particular gig when Thatcher was in the group being slightly better.)

"I miss Uncle Dick," says Derek.  "I hated it a lot of the time, but I loved it a lot more of the time.  I miss playing those songs, and the noise we made.  At the time, my head was all over the place, and I was very intense to work with.  I was a bit of a control freak, and I didn't like putting my music in the hands of others.  In a lot of ways I shouldn't have been in an ensemble at the time...but even with all of the stress brought about by my really, really crappy attitude, I loved being in that group, and I look back on that as probably the most fun time in my life."

After Uncle Dick's break-up Derek revisited his backlog of songs, deciding what he wanted to do with himself.  It was during this time that Derek's first solo-release, "Grounds," was born. Much of the material came from previous failed attempts at making records. Says Derek, "I had a duty to produce a record that chronicled not only the stuff people liked that I'd been doing for years, but that also represented where I wanted to go. As with ALL first-records, it was a learning experience, and some mistakes were made, but I think it makes for an interesting groundwork for what I've done since, if you'll pardon the pun. Plus, I got to regularly work with my best buddy Nikomas Perez (drums/percussion), who really added a lot to the project."

Derek wants to be sure that it is mentioned that Nikomas is a songwriter as well, and that he writes really good stuff. The two met in college, and have done a lot of work together in various musical projects, particularly oriented toward praise and worship music. Says Derek, "I'd really like to work with Nikomas again. Just hasn't worked out on the projects since "Grounds." He'd moved to a different state, and by the time he moved BACK, I'd already started working with different drummers...but we'll see what the future holds. I'm just glad he was there for me on 'Grounds.' He made the process a lot more fun than it should have been."

"Grounds" sold pretty well among Derek's friends, family, and fans. Derek's inability to tour behind the project (or even gig locally) did not seem too detrimental to sales, thanks to the Internet. Derek tends to think of the project as "The Little Record that Could." It helped him gain confidence in his abilities and made him feel like he could actually BE a musician.

Not content to sit back and enjoy a job well done, Derek immediately dove into composing a track-list for his next record. He began again by selecting some older material that he felt he had a "duty to" for the record. He was jokingly referring to the project with the title "Things I Meant to Say (That I Didn't Say on the Last One.)" Then something happened that took all of the humor out of the experience.

Five of Derek's friends were involved in a fatal car accident. Their van was rear-ended by a dump-truck and all five were pronounced dead at the scene. Derek suddenly found the title "Things I Meant to Say" more appropriate than funny (and he obviously dropped the parenthetical note). He composed the title track in memory of his late friends. Derek often steers clear of comment, due to some unresolved emotions relating to the event, but he did contribute the following to the website:

"I didn't really know what to say about it then, and I don't really know now either. All I know is that I've got a lot of regrets about not keeping in touch a little bit better, and that's the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. I mean, two of them were CHILDREN--the next were teenagers, and Angi (the oldest) was only 30. Their lives were unfinished, and no one should have to go to a funeral and see coffins less than four-feet long, knowing that the bodies inside were burned beyond recognition. I remember people at the time saying that God had a plan for it, and that He works in mysterious ways...and that's bullshit. If God's plan includes the senseless and reckless death of children, then I don't want anything to do with Him. God didn't do that. Maybe Satan had a hand in it...but come on...  'God works in mysterious ways.' I don't get that. Seriously, how is that supposed to make any f**king sense?"

As high as Derek's emotions run now, you can only imagine his mind-frame during recording. "In a lot of ways," he says, "I think of it as a really good experience--the RECORDING, I mean. I got to work out some demons, and I got to work with Tim (Heeley, drums) and Becky (Outlaw, vocals), both of whom I adore. I did manage to have fun making the record, and the two of them are a big part of why. I forever indebted to them. It was a hard, hard thing to do--especially that song. In fact, recording it, I had to be completely alone. It had to be just ME doing it--which is why I played the drums myself on that track. But, you know, I got to yell a little, too in songs like "Scars" and that always helps. In all, I think this record represents some of my best work to date. I'm incredibly proud of it, and I think the Huckabas and Willinghams would be, too. I hope they are."

To date, "Things I Meant to Say" is Derek's best selling record (with any project) and has bought him more than one guitar. "I know for certain that it's even been bootlegged!" Derek boasts. "A girl from California e-mailed me. I guess she just Googled my name and found the website. She said "Looking Back" really meant a lot to her and that she really identified with it. Then she told me that she burned a copy of the disk from one of her friends. Lars Ulrich may have been pissed off, but I was endlessly flattered. I really felt like I'd arrived!"

Though sparked by tragedy, the record is something Derek CAN be proud of, and has sparks of fun and energy throughout that are genuinely uplifting. The record does end with a very sad, yet appropriate tribute to Derek's friends. To date, Derek has (for understandable reasons) never performed the song live. Still, he maintains that he thinks of the song as one of his best, and says, "It really sparked a flame inside of me. It kind of steered me off into this direction of writing really, deeply personal stuff, and it's still shaping what I'm doing to this day."

Part of that "shaping" comes in the form of Derek's next solo record, "Out from the Light" which will be available in late 2008, at which point this biography will be updated.

Parallel to Derek's work as a solo artist, he also works as the guitarist, main songwriter, and half-time vocalist in the rock-based Blue Tattoo, and plays bass in the Michael Feldman group.

Regarding Blue Tattoo, Derek says:

 "I love working in that band. Those guys are great, and I'm particularly happy to still be working with Dave (Brink, bass/vocals). I can't imagine my life without my brother, and it's getting to where I'm hard-pressed to imagine making music without him, too. It's also great to be working with Chris (Teague, guitar) again. He's a great guy, and I missed him a lot when he left Uncle Dick. I'm SO glad he's back. Johnny (Ream, drums) rounds out the group incredibly well, too. He's probably the perfect drummer for what we do, and more importantly (to me, anyway) we can also spend hours with him at the bar. It's a really exciting time for me, being in this band, and we're about to take off in what I think will be a big way. We're getting our stuff ready, and we'll be gigging like CRAZY soon...and I've said it before, so I'll say it again...  If you liked Uncle Dick, if you liked my solo stuff, and if you like ANYTHING my name's connected with, but you haven't heard Blue Tattoo...you haven't heard ANYTHING yet. Just wait and see. Just watch."

Regarding the Feldman Group, Derek says this:

"Mike first tapped me to do some solo work with him, and it's turned into a really long working relationship and friendship. He's an amazing guitarist and he pushes me to think outside of my own experience. I like working with him. If you'd told me when we started out playing Christian coffee houses and benevolent associations that we'd be playing blues and rock cover songs a few years down the line, I'd have thought you were nuts! But, still, it's a great experience, and I have a lot of fun...plus I get to sit around talking crap with Kenny (Williamson, drums).  That's always fun!"

What the future holds for Derek, and how long it holds it remains to be seen. So far, Derek has been lucky, and has had a ride he's really enjoyed. Hopefully the future brings bigger and brighter things. We'll be here to cover it as it happens.