Brent Simon
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Brent Simon

Band Alternative Avant-garde

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Music

The best kept secret in music

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Discography

Seven of Nine - 2006

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

While growing up in the sleepy Ohio town of Mantua, Brent Simon’s sphere of influence reached only as far as what came to him in the form of movies, television and video games. His biggest musical influence is composer John Williams, but the music that was really rolling around in his head and creating a backdrop to his life was the simple yet exciting MIDI-based soundtracks of his favorite video games.

In 2001, after returning to Mantua from a failed attempt to start a new life in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Brent and his friends started a punk band called Bellevue (named, in part, for the town in Iowa in which Brent had also lived for a short stint) and made the rounds across Northeast Ohio playing their own style of punk-with-synth. It was during this time that it became clear that Brent’s on-stage presence, interesting lyrics and his creative mastery of his Roland Phantom synthesizer could easily translate into a unique solo career.

Bellevue broke up, but Brent continued to compose songs that amused both him and his friends. His musical style, while filled with the angst required for the punk scene, did not quite address the same angst as would be expected. Instead, Brent’s angst is a nerd’s angst – slow download speeds, failed space missions, the frustration of having to meet women IRL (in real life) and running out of hard drive space. In this, Brent created a new form of punk. Nerd Punk.

A local artist, Jeff Finley, found Brent’s music – as well as his life – great fodder for a short documentary film showcasing Brent’s somewhat mundane life of playing songs on his synth, working at the family store, and lusting after new tech gadgets. The “Brentumentary” became an instant hit online and thus was born Brent Simon and Nerd Punk.

Brent’s music and the “Brentumentary” reached out to the ever-growing population of the Nerd. His songs about going to Space Camp, the excitement of owning his first 32-bit processor computer and dreams about alien abduction echoed the sentiments of hundreds of thousands of self-proclaimed nerds across the globe. That, coupled with his far-from-exciting and introverted lifestyle, cinched Brent’s reputation amongst the world’s nerds as a possible leader for the nerd revolution.

The viral nature of the Internet let Brent’s music and Finley’s video clips spread quickly. The Web site NerdPunk.com was created to show off Brent’s talent and the message board WeAreAllNerds.com helped bring fans together. Almost overnight Brent was making appearances on radio shows, Web-based television shows, local newspapers and local news.

In November of 2006, on the same day that his much-anticipated album was released, Brent made an appearance on the ABC late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live as the musical guest.

While Brent’s ultimate goal in life is to make an actual trip into outer space, his current position as the world’s favorite nerd is suiting him quite well.