Secondhand Serenade

Secondhand Serenade serves as the artistic alias for singer-songwriter John Vesely, following the pattern set by Five for Fighting and Dashboard Confessional. Vesely grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area within a household centered on music, where his father worked as a professional jazz musician. He devoted several years to bass duties in regional groups before switching to acoustic guitar and turning his efforts toward writing original songs. Instead of issuing the material under his own name, Vesely gathered the tracks under the Secondhand Serenade heading, a choice that reflected how his autobiographical lyrics were first and foremost addressed to his wife, leaving audiences as observers of their private pas de deux. He completed his debut album, Awake, in 2005 and initially handled its release himself, offering the recording through digital sales on his MySpace page. Online interest soon secured a contract with Glassnote Records, which issued an expanded edition of Awake in February 2007.