Update August 2015
Tomorrow is Andrew's 27th birthday. He will be spending it in a hospital again. I wanted to thank everyone for listening to Andrew's music...as it makes a difference. His dream was to one day record in a real studio with some great musicians. We still hold out hope that one day this will happen. In recent months, Andrew's condition has deteriorated. He is still writing poetry, and longs to play a guitar again, but that is not possible at the moment. One of the goals in putting Andrew's music on this site and his site on reverbnation is to try to preserve what he has written over the last 5 years...and especially the 70+ songs he has written in his hospital room since the Spring of 2014. On this site and his reverb site these songs are annotated with "(WHS first cut)". Andrew's story is one that goes from a young man with a promising future.... a plebe at the US Military Academy at West Point .....to a long term patient at a State Hospital and a unremitting battle against the devastating and chronic brain disease that is referred to and labeled by Society as Serious Mental Illness (SMI). He did not ask for this curse and it is not his fault. His music is his way of expressing what he has been going through since his symptoms manifested themselves after his head injury from a car accident and altered the course of his life. The music began after his head injury in May 2009, as did his Psychosis. He has written approx. 250 songs since then. He never had any formal music training, and started composing on the keyboard in the fall of 2009. He first picked up a guitar in Apr 2010. His music is raw and unpolished. He does not follow the "rules" of songwriting. Some have called it minimalistic Folk....with a Grunge feel. His writing style has been compared to Syd Barrett, Donovan, Kurt Cobain and others....but remains uniquely "Andrew Neil". Thank you again for listening! Andrew would always say "Music makes a difference in this jello world" (from a line from his song Gypsy's Moss). Sincerely, Andrew's dad
