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PP BIO BY ALEX GREENWALD      Let me start this off by saying how Jason, Darren and I met. This was the first beginning of the band. (Not really Phantom Planet - that started when Jacques and Sam joined - but a beginning nonetheless.) I went to elementary school with Jason; some people know that, some don't. We were never friends in school. One day he called me (almost two years later without ever seeing each other) and asked me to sing for the band he was trying to get together. Somehow he remembered that I could sing...that's sort of where I met Darren. I say sort of because I had met him previously at Jason's about two years before. We didn't like each other very much then and it took a lot of trying to become friends (but we did). This is where Sam and Jacques come in. They were of a different breed. They went to private school. They looked that way, too. They weren't scraggly enough for my tastes. (Although Sam looked pretty hip in his ripped corduroy pants.) I am skipping some less useful information so I can get to the point more quickly. One day, all of us decided to play together. (At least that's how I'm telling it.) We played a bunch of cover songs: Stone Temple Pilots, Tom Petty, Green Day...and we played them pretty well. The band sounded really good. In fact, my first reaction was that we sounded GREAT! Wait, I used the word BAND earlier! That's exactly what it was! A BAND! I was very happy. In fact we haven't changed members, gotten in any serious fights, or ever looked back since then.