Peters Township native’s benefit concert helps fight cystic fibrosis
Adam Meyers performs during the release party for his “Motive” EP.
Adam Meyers recorded “Motive” at Red Caiman Studios in Pittsburgh.
Jaywalker performs: from left are Keith Quinn, Adam Meyers and Jake Locke.
As a registered nurse, Adam Meyers is well aware of the devastating effects of cystic fibrosis.
”I’ve taken care of CF patients in the hospital, and so there’s definitely a personal connection because of that,” he said.
As a musician, he is helping the cause of those who suffer from the genetic disease that causes persistent lung infections and limits the ability to breathe over time.
The 2009 Peters Township High School graduate recorded a five-song extended-play album, ”Motive,” with the intention of holding an EP release party to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Western Pennsylvania.
“It was way more successful than I could have imagined,” Meyers said about the July event at Pittsburgh’s Hard Rock Café, which generated $3,440. Through additional donations in his name, his total on behalf of foundation exceeds $4,200.
Meyers had been selected to participate in Pittsburgh’s 50 Finest, which is in its 22nd year of honoring young men and women for success in the careers while tasking them to raise funds and awareness for the foundation. A 2013 graduate of Gannon University’s Villa Maria School of Nursing who now lives on the North Side, he has worked for Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC for four years.
All the while, he has continued to pursue his interest in music, and he has one of those worth-retelling stories about how all of that started.
“My dad was an auto mechanic back in the day. He worked on somebody’s car, and this guy who worked at a guitar shop traded a guitar for his work. And so my dad just had this old guitar underneath his bed for years,” he recalled. “Coming out of my eighth-grade year, I found it and said, ‘Dad, can I learn how to play guitar?'”
Meanwhile, his buddy Keith Quinn – they met as students at St. Louise de Marillac School in Upper St. Clair – had learned to play guitar, too. At Peters Township High School, they teamed up with classmates Jake Locke on drums and Trevor Oliver on bass to form a band, which back then went by Pita.
A decade later, the quartet still is together as Jaywalker, specializing in a sound that combines the styles of rock and reggae. Quinn and Meyers often provide original material, as can be heard on Jaywalker’s “Drawing Board” EP.
“We write rock-reggae songs, but I also have a different avenue, which is more like acoustic, hip hop, orchestral-based,” Meyers said, citing such influences as Ed Sheeran, Jack Johnson and Gregory Alan Isakov, a Colorado singer-songwriter.
Meyers caught one of Isakov’s shows out there, complete with a symphony orchestra, last summer at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a venue in Colorado that inspired the cover art for “Motive.
“‘Steps in Denver’ is about that performance,” Meyers said about one of the eminently listenable tunes on “Motive.” “There’s a middle part that talks about the string players performing, and that’s actually based on my experience there.”
Armed with three other ready-to-go songs – he wrote another, “I Know It’s You,” during the sessions – Meyers cut his EP at Red Caiman Studios, with Quinn, who is on staff there, producing and engineering the recording along with studio owner Jesse Naus.
Everything came together between March, when Meyers decided to embark on the project, and the release party on July 13. Along the way, he enlisted the help of Star 100.7 on-air personality Melanie Taylor, who served as emcee for the event.
”They actually had me on the radio for a small segment called Local Love,” Meyers said. “That was kind of cool. I reached a little bit of a broader audience.”
All told, the honorees of Pittsburgh’s 50 Finest have raised half a million dollars this year for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Western Pennsylvania.
“So Pittsburgh,” Meyers observed, “is definitely a city of champions in more way than one.”
Visit www.cff.org/WesternPA and www.adammeyersmusic.com.