Better Days

It all began in Middle School, 1998, when the youngling twins, Steffan Jari and Ryan Kimmo Randle, met their new mate Carlos Fernando Simental. Carlos would soon come to sit in the Best Friend Class alongside Josh David Black, whom the boys knew since 1994.

The youngsters would do graffiti tags around the West Stockton neighborhood, representing themselves as the Kids Of Tomorrow. They never had any complications with anyone, but with Marks-A-Lot notoriety, came envy and debacles.

In High School, twins were constantly being accused of actions that never happened, due to jealousy and gossip. This lead to them having to go fisticuffs and defend themselves from kids with lower IQs and even lower problem-solving skills.

Carlos stayed behind at Stockton’s Stagg after the first week of Sophomore year when they Randles were socially-forced to fight under the Pacific levee bridge next to the school. Steffan was attacked twice that week, but as they say, “he held his own.”

After a semester at Tracy High School, the Randle brothers were expelled on their birthday for “gang-fighting” a meathead jock who loved to yell obscenities at Ryan in the hallways. Even though the kid got what he rightfully deserved, ‘twas the brothers who were once again forced to leave a school after nonsense fighting.

When they came back to Stockton, the friends focused their energy into spinning Electronica at local parties. Their most known events were held at their buddy, Bryce Harvey’s The Cabin out in the boondocks of Northwest Stockton.

During the same period, Ryan began producing his own music after a few lessons from his “Guru,” Nick Rutledge, aka Merks. Rutledge was the friend that first showed him how to beat-match and mix dance tracks on vinyl. He produced his first amateur album on Fruity Loops 3 in 2002, but later moved onto Reason. He shared his passed-down-knowledge with the rest of the boys, who were now calling themselves Beyond Your Dreams, and also writing it on walls.

Steffan become more and more enveloped in his art which later led to him getting his AA in Graphic Design from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in San Francisco. On his way back to Stockton, he would sometimes commute on the ACE train, where he became better friends with artist Pilo, of the Avanthop group Changes in Spanish. Pilo was delighted by Steffan’s artistic skills and brought him into his graf company, Better Days. The title would then spill over as the name of Steffan’s unborn band.

Steffan and Ryan supported themselves before and after high school by working at Michael’s Pizza near Interstate 5, where they soon met Jared Duncan Tharp, who would join the group later.

Jared Tharp was educated in Music and Art and received his BA with this knowledge. Ryan told Jared and other co-workers about the musical productions joys of Propellerhead’s Reason, but only Jared would harness its powers.

Tharp’s early music was smeared as “Baroque Porno Music” or Nintendo soundtracks, but when people with an actual understanding of music composition were intrigued by his melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and direction. Years later, Jared’s sounds would blossom with splashes of guitar pickings, somber tones, filtering, trombones, and his melancholy vocalizations.

After years after solo albums and disco-jockeying in front of the same friends, Ryan decided he wanted to start doing live shows, but this would prove to be more difficult when he didn’t want to perform by just pressing the play button. Steffan wanted to form a band and be rockstar, so Ryan helped Steffan get his first electric guitar. He later found and paid for a left-handed guitar for Carlos on Craigslist Sacramento.

In the Summer of 2008, they began converting Ryan’s aka Anti Alles’s indie/trip-hop tracks into live, playable songs on guitar and keyboard. Before his honeymoon in August of that year, Ryan purchased a MPC1000 which would prove to be a great help when he did an open-mic event with he neighbor Frankie Muao aka Run One.

After Jared finished school, he moved back to Stockton in the beginning of 2009. When Steffan told Ryan Jared was back, he was immediately became a member of Better Days. Jared and Ryan had always talked about producing together years back, but now the dream was coming to fruition.

The pulp is starting to drop.