Born and raised in Harrisburg, Connor Engberg discovered a love for music listening to his dad’s collection of “hair band” CDs from the 1980s. The interest became his identity about the time he joined his school’s band in the fifth grade. And once he picked up the guitar he was hooked. In 2016, while pursuing a music degree, he and his college friend Jackson Ashlock started the band Granola. In this Take A Moment segment, the 26-year-old shares the impact music has had on his life.
“I come from not a musical family, whatsoever.
I tried to do sports. I was terrible at sports. So, band really became the thing that I really associated myself with mostly.
It was at the start of our band and I think I just saw it as, “Well, someone needs to write, so I guess I will do it.” It is something I have always appreciated too, is song writing. That has always been like the king for me, when I listen to music, that is what I listen for most. So, it was really natural for me to become interested in that. It was super difficult.
To get to the point of like, writing seriously and being able to show it to people, you are in such a vulnerable spot and you have to be so not afraid of falling flat on your face. You know, not being afraid, of you know, “this song may be really bad, but you know, screw it, I’m going to go for it anyway.” That is the mental hurdle you have to get through. But then, once I did, it was all over. That is all I wanted to do, I just wanted to keep writing and writing. I never stopped.
We don’t look purely for talent, we look for who we can hang out with. But we got really lucky, because the people we like hanging out with are also really talented. A lot of us have our music degrees, we all met in college. We built out a band of really well seasoned musicians.
Monetary wise, not very lucrative. I mean, we have played for tattoos and piercings.
It is not all about the music. It’s everything. Music has brought me to the place where that is the common denominator between all my friends and how we talk and what we listen to and the comradery, and all that. It is all part of this bigger thing. It has brought us the most fun moments in our lives.”
To listen to Granola live, visit SDPB.org and link to their Facebook page.
