With his ratty old guitar case by his side, a smile from ear to ear, and his Strong Distilling hat, which he wears at all times, Brad encompasses the perfect image of a musician.
The happy, energetic person he is shows through every aspect of his life, the way he talks and laughs with people, and most of all, the way he plays his music. It is something special to see a person light up the way Rhodes does when he hits that first string of his guitar or when he takes a big breath in to sing out the first word in his thoughtfully written songs.
“I grew up in a pretty musical family…we would always gather around the piano while my mom was playing and we would all sing. Also, growing up in the church was a big part of that as well because we all sang in the choir and later on played in the Church praise so since birth it has been a big part of my family’s life,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes love for music, however, did not end after childhood. Writing songs and playing the guitar has been an essential piece in his entire life. Rhodes distinctly remembers learning to play the guitar to find more options for his songwriting and being able to display his skills like those of his idols, including Billy Joel and Elton John.
“That was the first dream I ever had. Probably from 7th grade was when I really started writing songs. I kinda stuck to it throughout high school and it was all I wanted to do,” Rhodes said, explaining his long time dream of being a musician.
The next chapter in Rhodes’ artistic career began when he met his bandmates during his senior year of highschool. The band Rhodes and his friends created is named Melodime. The band defines Melodime as “memories in the form of sound.” Rhodes explained that the word is supposed to mean the nostalgic feeling one gets when you hear a song, like the song is bringing you back to that moment.
“The sole purpose was to fulfill that same dream from 7th and 8th grade and have a group of guys you can play with that bring so much to the table, Rhodes said. “It’s also different playing with a band than playing by yourself and having a bunch people involved in that creative process. There is just a lot of optimism because we started when we were so young. At that time, we thought surely we’ll be famous in two years and stuff and we didn’t have anything really holding us back at that point, so we kind of hit it full throttle at the beginning.”
The band has gone on many tours all around the country, also including Canada. Although, when Melodime is back in their hometown of Arlington, they can be seen playing at places like Jammin Java, The State Theater, and Open Road Grill in Merrifield.
Being an upcoming artist comes with a lot of challenges and Rhodes knows that first hand. When starting off his band it was extremely difficult to get gigs and “get your feet wet in the industry,” however, Melodime took every offer they got.
“Over time, we just took every gig that was given to us,” Rhodes said about starting out and taking all experiences.
This amount of time to try things out and create their portfolio of albums and songs led to them having many connections of their own in the music industry. Leading to Melodime in 2014 getting a large gig on a music cruise called, “The Rock Boat.” This cruise with 1,000 plus fans on it really spread their music and lead them to have more connections with other musicians such as Gavin Degraw and Sister Hazel.
Another music gig that Rhodes holds and dear to Melodime’s heart is the Christian retreat, Breakaway. This 2016 was the sixth year that Melodime has played at both the high school and middle school retreat.
“We got to know the kids from all the schools like George Mason pretty well and it became more of a family thing than we thought it was going to be in the beginning,” Rhodes said. “It is also nice for us to, because we do not really get to play worship music as a band all that often and I think it is good for us to get together and get away and go out there where the retreat center is and have a few days of spiritual time… it has just become a special place for us.”
Photo 3 Caption: Playing one of his gigs at the local State Theatre. (Photo Courtesy of Rhodes’ Facebook)
In the terms of Melodime’s portfolio of music, they have created five albums, which you can buy on iTunes. However, you can also listen to two of their albums Where Sinners and Saints Collide and 3 Reasons For Fighting on Spotify. When talking to Rhodes about his favorite songs that he wrote he explained to me his two favorite songs would have to be Criminal and The Half of It.
“With writing, there’s certain songs that I call ‘me’ songs like you’re not writing them to make a hit song or anything but it’s a cathartic thing where you just want to get all your emotions out. ‘The Half of It’ was one of those songs. When I was driving home from Tennessee and I was visiting a girl down there, every single time I would drive home I would have all these emotions on the way back,” Rhodes said. “I wrote ‘The Half of It’ on the way home and I had no melody or guitar with me or anything it was just a poem for the most part, and there’s a ton of words in that song but I just remember the emotion when I wrote it, it felt like one of the most genuine sad love songs I had ever written before.”
When I asked Rhodes what music meant to him, he decided to tell me a story to explain. In 5th grade, he had a pretty and nice teacher but was switched into another class due to another teacher coming into the school. He was so upset, but then his older brother gave him this Old Grateful Dead CD. The first 30 seconds of the song “Jack Straw” gave Rhodes chills for the first time. That experience he had with music giving him the chills made him obsessed with the feeling and he would play that 30 seconds of the song on repeat when he was ever struggling. His obsession with music came from the longing to recreate that feeling.
On the other hand, music is also very spiritual for Rhodes. Rhodes believes it’s crazy how in ways God comes up with the songs he writes and how God works with him to write the amazing songs he writes.
Rhodes advice to the kids at Mason who want to pursue a life of music is to simply write. Write your songs and your music because it is so important to make your music unique to you and to constantly create. As well as, once you create your music take every gig and get the practice of being on stage because it is not something you can learn without experience.
Once the interview was over, Rhodes and I talked a little more about the music we were listening to lately like the 1975 or Paul Pfau and our daily debate on whether Taylor Swift is talented or not, and not once did I see the dim of the light in Rhodes face and the passion he felt about the music he talked about, and that is when I realized I had sat down and talked to a true musician for the first time.
