Someone Else's War

Early Years Ever since receiving an 8-bit, 24 key Casio sampling keyboard for Christmas while still in high school in central Pennsylvania, Andy Lee has been exploring his unique musical vision. During high school, Lee played bass and keyboards in his three piece band The Season, which didn't last past graduation. After high school, Lee picked up his mother's acoustic guitar and taught himself to play in order to pursue his songwriting. Progress was slow through college as Lee focused on obtaining his degree in art and worked his way through school. All the while Lee continued to practice guitar and develop ideas. After graduating college in 1999, Lee found work as a designer in the Philadelphia area. For the next few years Lee sought out like-minded individuals to support his ambitions to play his songs in a live capacity. Unfortunately, Lee found the Philadelphia music scene to be a stifling, frustrating landscape at the time. 'Finding musicians who wanted to make music that was something other than covering the testosterone-driven corporate radio dominating what passed for Philadelphia's modern rock station was like finding a needle in a haystack,' says Lee. Someone Else's War By 2001 Lee had given up on forming a band and decided to concentrate on recording material. The dozens of songs that Lee had written over the years became a strong basis for what would become See It on the BBC. A number of failed relationships and the buildup and invasion of Iraq were the emotional inspiration and genesis of what would be the full length debut, Someone Else's War. Finished in late 2003 and remixed throughout 2004, the album now only needed an artist name to go with it. With the hope of eventually forming a full band, Lee decided against using his own name and to instead use the name See It on the BBC, Partially as a nod to his large wealth of British influences and partially as a reference to his penchant for seeking news that falls outside of the perspective of the conservative corporate American media. 'In the end, I just like the way it rolls off the tongue,' says Lee. Current Plans Since the completion of Someone Else's War, Lee has spent the last few years recording new material, remastering Someone Else's War and testing out his material as a one man live set while saving up the funds necessary for the self-financed release of the album. With the release of Someone Else's War, See It on the BBC begins a grand experimentation of promoting an album that is free from financial support and therefore corporate influence. Drawing comparisons to early Cure, Radiohead and Joy Division, Someone Else's War is an independent musical statement as much as a political and emotional one. 'I've always been drawn to the more raw sounding artists out there, the ones who's music betrayed their emotions in the most primal ways. I've also always been drawn to those who sing because they have something to say as opposed to those who sing because they've been trained to sing well. I wouldn't mind being seen as something of an anti-American Idol to be honest,' jokes Lee. 'Recently I was finally coerced into seeing an episode and it only reinforced the nausea I feel from reality TV in general, and American Idol in particular.' Whether or not Someone Else's War sees any critical or financial success, it is sure to be only the first of See It on the BBC's many artistic statements to come.