Wesley James Curtis formed his first band in seventh grade, shortly after getting his first electric guitar. The year was 2001, and the band was called 51-50. They were as loud, obnoxious, tone-deaf, and angst-ridden as four thirteen-year-old boys could reasonably be. Wesley remains grateful to the parents who let that particular kind of mayhem emanate from their garage each week. Their primary influences were punk CDs from the likes of MxPx, NOFX, and Green Day.

Around the same time, family friend Stefano Bloch (LINK) introduced Wesley to Modest Mouse, Radiohead, and the Pixies during extended visits to Los Angeles, in which Wesley would spend his time skateboarding down Hollywood Boulevard, and hanging out on the streets with the local characters. 

At 16 years old, Wesley had the good fortune of going to Cancun with future bandmate Derek Clark and his family. Wesley and Derek quickly discovered easy access to beer and Cuban cigars, and while on a beach in Playa Del Carmen, under the moon in 2005, Wesley wrote his first lyrics on hotel stationary, as one does. Wesley proceeded to write hundreds more poorly composed, cryptic, Modest Mouse-inspired song lyrics, until a large book was bursting and he needed a way to better capture and formalize elusive and fleeting ideas.

In high school, while working at a local golf course retrieving golf balls from the driving range and dodging the occasional intentionally aimed line drive, Wesley bought an old BOSS BR-532 digital recorder off a coworker named Patrick, who also helped him record his first song (thanks, Patrick!). Off to the races, Wesley began recording his own extraordinarily rudimentary songs. This was the beginning of Fleeting Gold. A bedroom project called Hot Jupiter at the time, Wesley soon replaced the BOSS 4-track with a Fostex MR-8HD digital 8-track recorder (pictured). During these years, Wesley also scored his first iPod and filled it with every Pink Floyd album ever released.