Forgotten Fable is a melodic metal band comprised of five distinct personalities coming together to combine metal styles into a musical journey all their own.

The band consists of Andrew Taylor doing vocals, Jarod Delgado on drums, Tim Gleaves on lead guitar, Paul Garcia on rhythm guitar and Craig Alspaugh on bass. Below four members of this hard –to-forget group share their stories.

Jarod Delgado is the 26-year-old drummer for Forgotten Fable who began playing when he was fourteen years old, “My friends would always tell me how good I was at the drums, but I was always like, ‘Yeah whatever,’ Jarod chuckles. “I sort of just fell into it. When I got my first double kick, I practiced and practiced and, suddenly, I developed my own sort of style. Most of bands that use double kicks are a little bit more on the heavy side of music.”

Born in St. Mary’s, Ohio , Jarod grew up in the little town of Mendon , “It doesn’t even have a gas station,” he says. “I was a pretty ornery kid growing up. I always had a very few select friends. I don't know how I got through school. I never paid attention and I would always smart off to the teachers. Most of the time when my mother told me I wasn't able to do something or go somewhere, well, I would anyway,” he says with a laugh. “When I was twelve years old, I moved to my father's house. My dad has always been a big inspiration to me when it comes to music. He is in a band himself. I met some really cool friends and started learning to play drums and guitar. I got into a lot of trouble in junior high. When I got into high school, I started to fail out of school.”

Jarod’s life began to turn around when he was sixteen, “I had a girlfriend and things were going really good, then just kind of went down hill. We ended out splitting up. I was a big boy back in the day. I had some baggage. My sister ran into my ex and she was telling my sister how hot and how much of a nice body the new guy she was seeing had. Something triggered in my head and said, ‘Jarod, you got to lose weight, get in shape and show her what she is missing out on,’” Jarod says with a laugh. “So I did. I worked out and worked out and worked out. I was in shape and I had taught myself something. I realized I could do what ever I want; I just have to want it bad enough. From then on, I was a changed person.”

“I survived high school and changed my ways quite a bit. I am very close with my family,” he says. He recently relocated to Tennessee and works as an LPN at a Nursing home at West Meade Place in Bell Meade, Tennessee , and has a four-year-old son named Corbin.

Jarod became hooked on the metal sound when he listened to the debut album of the band Disturbed. “I was absolutely just amazed by energy you can get simply by the waves coming out of your speakers! I couldn't even fathom the type of energy you would get at a live concert. I don't like going to a concert where every one is so isolated. I want movement. Our music definitely gets you moving!”

Lead Guitarist Tim Gleaves is a Nashville native who started music at age thirteen. “I was pretty sheltered as a child and teen. I was a very dark child, in some ways, I still am. I found a job at a cemetery and worked in that business for eight years. What a metal gig!” he says with laughter. “And here I am now, piss broke due to the economy… But I still have music!”

The 29-year-old Gleaves continues, “I had a great family life and wouldn’t want to change any of that, but I feel for my parents. My parents are the most awesome parents I could ever have. They are supportive people and try to make it to every single local show I have. Great people! My brother and I are the exact opposite, though, but at least we can talk and not kill each other now.”

“Growing up, I remember Dad bringing home a couple guitars and an amp from someone he bought it off of at his work. It was always in the house and I would turn it on from time to time, but didn’t understand it. I really hit it big with it when a buddy of mine taught me two songs and it really made me take off with it. But, really, what made me a musician was listening to a Joe Satriani album called ‘Surfing with the Alien.’ I got chill bumps and said, ‘If he can do it, I can do it!’”

“I got into my first real band Shadows of Light and it made me move from the death metal stuff to more groove oriented music. I loved the response I got more from that band than the death metal bands. Forgotten Fable is more what I wanted to play in the beginning, but Shadows of Light was a great kick off point for my musical career.”

“This is all I want in life. I am not a person to be put in the customer service or sales scene. I tried that and realized I’m not cut out for it. I work very hard for music and when my old band broke up, a part of me died because I thought I would never be back on top. I take that back now, I am back on top and I am going to keep climbing!

Music is my soul. I am dead without music. I am dead without a band to push the music I write or help write.”

Andrew Taylor was raised in a world far removed from the heavy metal scene. “My father was a pastor. I was born in Canada and raised on the west coast. By the time I was twelve, I had lived in over twenty-two major cities and I moved back to Canada to help my grandma keep her farm. I was in the church youth group and everyone there could play or do something musical. My whole life I was told that I couldn't sing, so I bought a set of drums. I spent hours in the garage with a CD player and the kit learning how to play,” he says.

“I was a fat, loser kid, but tall. I was beat on all the time when I was real young. From that, I became very violent. I was saved from that and became the opposite, very gentle and kind. When I moved to Canada they ate me alive. I was pushed around, beat up, and turned down. I remember one day the bullies pinned me down and scrubbed my hair with cheese in a can. I had to walk around school like that, it was bad. I was very suicidal, very combustible, but I found my light and it changed my life.”

“When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I heard Korn’s ‘Thorn in my Side.’ I had never listened to something like that in my life. There was something about it that really pulled me in. When I was eighteen, I moved to Arizona, where I became a youth pastor over the largest youth group in the state.. I was at a Christian CD store and asked the guy ‘what do the kids like?’ He pointed out two CDs. One would forge my future. That CD was project 86’s "Drawing Black Lines."

In Arizona, Andrew worked security for record companies. He did so well they asked him to work back stage, which lead him to becoming a tour manager. “I made sure hotels were booked for bands and that food and entertainment were there and on time. I got burned out fast. In my twenty’s, I fell to the wayside. I got in to drugs, girls, and booze. I did that for a few years before I got out.”

Andrew’s life took a turn towards a path he knew more about. “I went to Bible College ,” he says. “Then I moved to Bakersfield , California , where I found out I could sing. I joined my first band, Prone. We toured all over North America and got invited overseas a few times. I moved to Nashville because it was a good mix of country meets city. I wrote music for two years and then I was called to sing again.”

The 27 year old, whose life has taken many twists and turns, still doesn’t do things the easy way. “Performing for me is showing the world that I’m not who they think I am. When I am back stage, I am a wreck. I throw up, cry, hyperventilate and freak out. When I step on stage, I become something different. I show the world that I was the salt of the earth and now I am being used to do great things to confound the wise.”

Andrew’s take on his band mates, is as illuminating and it is colorful. “We are guys that tell each other we love each other.. We always hug on each other and help each other out. Gleaves loves boobs. He does not care if they’re on guys or girls, he will grope them. Jarod loves his beer and is very loud about it. Craig, we just found out, knows and speaks English but chooses not to. We thought the only words he knows were, ‘good God’, ‘hmmm’, ‘yea’ and ‘ha ha’. Paul is the face of the band, meaning the only good looking one among us, and is oblivious to it. Me, I’m dyslexic, shy, hate the stage, and Canadian. Can’t get much worse than that.”

Rhythm Guitarist Paul Garcia is the baby of the group at 23 years old. “I have been playing piano since I was five years old. I was so passionate about wanting to play and be on stage. I found myself through music. It saved my life,” he says.

“As a pianist I loved everything classical, Bach, Beethoven, you name it, I loved it. Then when I began teaching myself to play guitar, fell into a love for punk, but then I was introduced to heavy metal. I knew that this is what I wanted to play and felt the energy of it. Metal is a combination of all music that I love.”

Paul is a VW technician with several degrees and says, “I’m very good at what I do, but it’s not my ultimate passion. Music is my passion, my life, and my soul. It flows threw my veins, its the blood that keeps me going. It allows me to express my thoughts and feelings through every note and every chord. I feel alive and complete with music. Playing to a crowd and playing the music I have put my heart and my soul into is a rush I cannot even begin to explain.”

Like Andrew, bullies plagued Paul’s childhood, “I was the shy kid, the really nice kid. I was always picked on. I was beaten up several times, but I never fought back. I was smaller back then and had less confidence. The most vivid memory I have is being pinned up against a fence while five or six kids whipped me with roofing shingles during first grade recess. I have plenty of scars on my back to remind me of it.”

“I wouldn’t be who I am today without music. I would be certainly dead, if I didn’t have music, without a doubt,” Paul says alluding to an incident he describes as, “An almost very successful suicide attempt when I hit rock bottom.”

To remember that time, Paul wrote the song “For Love and Death” a motto he also has tattooed on his right side, “It means, life without love is meaningless and life without death is impossible. That’s why I live my life "For Love and Death." Accomplish your goals and dreams, do whatever it takes, surround yourself with people that will bring you up and support you. Remember a dream without doing anything to achieve it is a wish. Death will come to us all, if you overcome that fear and stare it back in the eye, you can accomplish anything.”

Forgotten Fable is hoping to bring their sounds to as many people as possible by touring, writing and sharpening their craft. They plan to begin studio recording later this year.