Photos: Mike Haley
For those who know me, it comes as no surprise that my relationship with music is not casual, it lives in my bones. It is something that has been woven into the fabric of who I am for as long as I can remember. In fact, my earliest memory is not marked by some monumental or life altering event, but by something far more ordinary and, in many ways, far more defining. I can still see Carol, my mom, moving through the house, cleaning, while the sounds of Bob Seger and Kiss filled the room from one of those large, cabinet style record players. I have often found myself wondering why that moment, out of all possible beginnings, is the one that stayed. And yet, the more I reflect on it, the more I understand that there is something deeply symbolic about it. Music was there from the very start, my first friend, not as background noise, as something alive within the space I was growing up and still living in.
As I moved through my early years, that connection only deepened, largely shaped by the influence of my older cousins. Though we were cousins by blood, our relationship felt much more like that of brothers. They were guides I admired, people I studied without realizing, and they played a significant role in shaping not only my taste in music, but my identity as a whole. The impact they had on me during those formative years cannot be overstated. In many ways, the person I am today is a direct extension of them.
My eventual immersion into music came through them, but also through my Uncle James, who, without fully knowing it, created some of the most magical experiences that one can have through headphones. Every Christmas, he would put together cassette mixtapes for each of his nephews, carefully curating collections of music from the 70s and 80s. Bands like Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, and Slayer were not just artists on a tape, they were introductions to an entirely new emotional landscape. I do not remember most of the gifts I received as a child other than the Super Nintendo I once opened early without my mom knowing. Sorry Carol. But what I do remember, are those tapes. I can still picture them. I still have some of them. And more than anything, I remember how they made me feel.
Listening to those songs felt like something waking up inside of me. It was as if I was being introduced to a language I had always understood but had never heard spoken out loud. There was something deeply personal about it, something that felt less like entertainment and more like nourishment. Those mixtapes did not just shape my taste in music, they shaped the way I connect, the way I express, and the way I understand the world. Not to sound too hyperbolic, but the framework of my life would not be the same without it.
Years later, without consciously recognizing it, I found myself continuing that same tradition in my own way. The medium had changed. Instead of recording onto cassette tapes, I was burning CDs, but the intention remained exactly the same. I became the person people would come to for music, the one who would put together collections and share them, hoping that something within those songs would resonate the way it once did for me. There is a unique kind of joy in that, in giving someone a piece of something that has meant something to you.
For me, music has always been more than just sound. It is a language. It is a bridge. Lyrics often say what I struggle to articulate on my own. They give shape to thoughts and feelings that would otherwise remain unspoken. Sending someone a song is not a casual act. It is personal. It is intentional. It is, in my view, one of the most intimate ways you can connect with another person.
If I love you, there is a very good chance I have sent you a song. You’re welcome?!?
It’s no longer cassettes or burned CD’s, now it’s playlists. So it felt natural to start a Chad’s Hospital playlist here if you’d like to add songs that are important to you. I’d love to hear them.
My wife Sarah and I have always held to the belief that our daughters should discover their own path in the world, not one prescribed or imposed by us. We have been intentional about creating space for them to explore who they are, to make their own decisions, and to develop a sense of identity that is entirely their own. We do not force direction, nor do we try to script their future. Their autonomy matters to us. That process of becoming matters.
There are, however, two convictions I have held firmly, the rare places where guidance becomes something closer to insistence. The first is this: whatever they choose to pursue as adults, they must genuinely love it. Not tolerate it, not simply succeed at it, but feel a deep, intrinsic connection to it. It took me years to arrive at that understanding myself. It was not immediate, and it was not easy. I often say that I am the luckiest guy in the world, because I am paid by insurance companies to do something I would willingly do for free, which is to try to help people.
So to my girls…The Avett Brothers tell us to “decide what to be and go be it.” Yeah, do that.
That does not mean the work is flawless. Far from it. I make mistakes regularly, more than I would like to admit. But I believe, and I hope those I have worked with would agree, that my intentions are rooted in genuine care. That is especially true when working with kids, where authenticity is not optional, it is essential. And for me, the work has never felt like an obligation. It does not feel like something I have to do. It feels like something I get to do. In many ways, I have not felt like I have truly “worked” in a long time. I have simply been living within something that aligns with who I am and part of my purpose in life. If you’re out there 9-5ing it in a place you hate – I recommend quitting, you’ll be way happier. If you’ve searched and haven’t found it yet, keep searching. You’ll eventually find it, or if you’re like me, it’ll find you.
The second non-negotiable is less spoken but just as present. I never deliberately pushed a love of music onto my daughters, but somehow, likely through osmosis, it found its way to them. Maybe it was proximity, maybe it was exposure, or maybe it was something they inherited through me. Either way, it is there, and I’m glad it is. I hear it in the songs echoing from the bathroom while they are showering, music playing loudly through Alexa as if volume is part of the experience. I notice it in truck rides with the windows down, where the soundtrack feels just as important as the destination. I see it in the quiet moments outside, sitting around a fire, where music fills the space like oxygen in the air.
It has become part of the atmosphere of our lives, woven into the rhythm of what some might consider a simple, white picket fence existence, but what I recognize as something far more meaningful. And at the center of it all is my girls that, in my eyes, is more than I could have ever asked for.
What would my life look like if music was just background noise? I’m not sure. That world does not exist for me. I hope it doesn’t for you either. Whether it’s music or something else. The soundtrack to my life has been filled with a lot of music.
It was 36 Crazyfist in 2006 when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. It was Hatebreed in Columbia, Mo with my buddy John. It was Blind Melon in a van with my cousin Dick. It was the Cops theme with my sister while working out. It was Relative Ash at the Creepy Crawl. It was Taylor Swift at Soldier Field. It was Jamey Johnson at Children’s Hospital. It was 21 Pilots at Children’s Hospital again. It was Georgia on My Mind at my wedding. It was Duna Hill and keg stands at the reception. It was William Clark Green’s tour bus. It was Lawrence, Kansas with System of a Down. It was Arlo, Moreland, and John R. Miller. It was/is Wu-Tang FOREVER.
It was The Toadies at Riverport with my two oldest. It was A LOT of Pantera with Twan and Dan while golfing. It was Melon Collie…AND it was the Infinite Sadness. It was buying my Taylor guitar before our first-born child was born. It was The War on Drugs in The Barn. It was Ryan Adams on long drives. It was Guns N’ Roses at Arrowhead. It was Jeromy’s basement and a lot of patience from Penny. It was Cherokee Landing, boy was it Cherokee Landing. It was my guys all packed into a van somewhere in the Midwest trying to do our own music. It was Mike’s laundry room, and it was my garage with the other Mike with crickets as the rhythm section. It was Ozzy AND it was Mama I’m Coming Home for Branen, always.
It was Ozzy in 1997, 98, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04.
I realize now that it was never just about the music itself. It was about what it carried with it.
If you are lucky, you find something in this life that becomes part of your language, something that helps you express what you otherwise can’t, something that brings people closer instead of pushing them away.
Neither life nor music moves linearly. Both unfold like layered compositions, moving through loops, refrains, and shifting tempos, building into crescendos before easing back into quiet, reflective passages.
There are key changes we never see coming, bridges that carry us somewhere unexpected, and moments of dissonance that somehow resolve into something beautiful. In unexpected ways, songs take on new meaning with time and experience. A track you once played on repeat during one chapter finds its way back to you years later, carrying a completely different weight, shaped by everything you have lived in between.
In the same way, life does not progress in clean, predictable steps. It bends, it revisits, it builds on itself in ways that only make sense when you stop trying to force it into order. I am feeling that right now in fact, wading through a river of uncertainty but like always, music is there. Regina Spektor is there with On the Radio but I must disagree the solo on November Rain isn’t too long, in fact it’s nearly perfect.
“This is how it works. You’re young until you’re not. You love until you don’t. You try until you can’t
You laugh until you cry. You cry until you laugh. And everyone must breathe. Until their dyin’ breath
No, this is how it works. You peer inside yourself. You take the things you like. Then try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made. And stick it into some someone else’s heart. Pumpin’ someone else’s blood
On the radio. You’ll hear “November Rain” That solo’s awful long. But it’s a good refrain“
Music has been more than a companion in my life, it has been a guide, a teacher, and at times, a mirror I didn’t know I needed. It has shaped the way I understand myself. Through it, I have found pieces of who I am, and just as importantly, I have found others who hear and feel the world in similar ways. There is something almost sacred about that connection, how a song can bridge distance, dissolve walls, and remind you that you are not alone in whatever you are carrying. Music has a way of speaking directly to you, meeting you exactly where you are, and gently teaching you what you need to learn, whether you’re ready for it or not. It has been a constant presence, a quiet blessing, guiding me through the noise, helping me make sense of it all, and reminding me, over and over again, that there is meaning to be found in the sound.
And when the music begins to fade into its final refrain, when the edges of memory soften, I am anchored in the belief that what will endure are the moments, the people, and the songs that carried it all, especially in the hardest verses of life, when music reminds us that even in the deepest of dark, we can still scare it away.
For Branen, Dick, and John…
The Barn 