Andover native Adam Reczek started performing his songs while in college, and he hasn’t really stopped since. He calls it his “only real constant.”
When he spent a semester in New Zealand, he did a lot of street performing there. Now that he’s returned to Andover, to complete a premed program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, he’s still writing and performing.
Reczek recently offered a free show of his music at West Parish Church.
Reczek graduated from Andover High in 2007 and attended Saint Michael’s College in Burlington, Vt.
He says that’s “where I first started playing regularly and became an active part of the music scene up there by the time I graduated in 2011 with a business degree. I never really wanted to study music, as I thought it would suck the fun out of it.”
Q&A
When did you first take an interest in music? First pick up an instrument?
I got my first guitar (an electric) for Christmas in eighth grade. I started giving lessons to kids around the neighborhood and in neighboring towns as a sophomore in high school and I have continued that in some capacity on-and-off to this day.
I started writing towards the end of high school but didn’t start performing until college, and then I started doing it as often as possible. I recorded two albums in college and, earlier this year, decided to really commit to the quality of my recordings and built my own studio in the basement of my parents’ house. My latest album “Buttoned from the Bottom Up” was the result, and I couldn’t be happier with it.
Did you find your interest in music common as a kid growing up in Andover?
There was a lot of musical interest among my peers in Andover during my high school years and there were even a few coffee houses set up through the school or through AYS [Andover Youth Services] that I took part in, but beyond that there was no real community built around it. After living in Burlington [Vt.] for four years, it became even more obvious how much a music scene in town was lacking.
You spent some time in New Zealand?
I did. I [spent] five of the best months of my life living in New Zealand during a semester abroad. Not only did I do a lot of busking -- street performing -- down there, but my journeys and adventures down there gave me an endless supply of ideas for songs. New Zealand continues to be one of my greatest inspirations.
Family still here? What made you come back to Andover for the West Parish show?
After I graduated I started a post-baccalaureate pre-med program at UVM and moved back to Andover to finish it at UMass Lowell; this is my second and last year of that.
I chose to pursue West Parish as a venue because I wanted to be able to have a free, public venue for a concert of original music in Andover, something I have never really seen in all my time here. West Parish proved to be not only perfect for those needs, but to have amazing acoustics and other intangibles which suited it well to the situation.
So what’s the grand plan? Do you plan to be a doctor or another medical professional who does the occasional gig on the side?
I’d like to go to medical school within the next few years. Between now and then I’ll be looking to work for a while to start working on my ever-accumulating loans and interest. If I can work some travel into that it would be ideal, sort of a Kerouac or Steinbeck-type ideal behind the next few years while still not fleeing from the responsibilities of reality too much.
Music is the only real constant; I’ll always have it. If something comes of it, great. If not, I have a pretty good game plan I’m always trying to make better.
