What are you up to now?:
I'm getting married in July and you're all invited! I live in Washington, DC and work for the US Agency for International Development on humanitarian assistance programs that focus mainly on Africa. I travel a lot -- I've been to 30 countries and counting. I still sing as part of a barbershop harmony chorus, which is just like the Hyannis Sound, save for the fact that the median age is about 75 and, well, we often don't sound very good.

This is weird. I feel like I'm filling out an on-line dating questionnaire. And I'm just going to go with it.

Likes:
Long walks on the Cape, candlelit dinners, cuddling

Dislikes:
Cliches; alliteration

More about what I'm looking for:
Someone with a sense of humor and only carry-on size baggage. Someone who likes the outdoors but also quiet nights at home. Must be a non-smoker. Literacy a plus.

Has HS affected the general trajectory of your life? If so, how?:
It seems strange at first that the Hyannis Sound can loom so large as an influence in my life. Ten guys living together, singing a cappella on the Cape. A great gig for sure. But a life-changing experience? Now we're laying it on a little thick.

Only we're not.

There's something about the intersection of time and opportunity that makes this special. The chance to have a job that's too good to be true at an age when you're starting to put your life together -- to look ahead and consider what kind of mark you're going to make -- changes the calculus of what's possible. You find yourself in a house (a dingy house, yes) and part a group that's better than any group you'd ever been in. Laughing harder than you'd ever laughed. Singing better than you'd ever sung. You go out on stage night after night and, through trial and error (lots of error), become a better performer than you thought possible. And the confidence grows. It creeps into other areas of your life. Every day you discover pieces of yourself that you didn't know were there. You feel like you can conquer the world. And it dawns on you that maybe this doesn't have to end if you don't want it to. The summer will end, of course, but this journey can continue. I think there are a lot of guys that do things after leaving the Sound that they might not have had the courage to do before. After my first summer in the group I started re-thinking what I wanted to do with my life. After my second, I decided to take an adventure and rode a bicycle across America by myself. After my third I joined the Peace Corps where I found my calling and met my future wife.

To say that everything that followed the Sound was because of the Sound is perhaps an over-statement. But what cannot be over-stated is the role my experience in the group had in breaking apart all the structures I thought I had to adhere to in life. I went into it thinking of the summer as one last hurrah. But that's just bull. You can live the dream. Nothing has to be inevitable.

Have you ever been doing something and realized that it's taught you what it takes to be the best possible version of yourself? That's what I got from this group. A smarter person might call that self-actualization, but I wouldn't know about that.

Tell us about your favorite on-stage moment...:
I can think of many funny memories, or moments of adulation, but my favorite moment singing with the Sound was when we sang "A Parting Blessing" in memory of a dear friend of the group who had passed away. His relatives were in the audience that evening and our singing that song to them made me realize the strength of the bond we make with the people who come to our shows and become part of our lives, part of our families. I saw that for us, in that moment, our song was an outward manifestation of this transcendent and ineffable link. That opportunity to feel the power of that connection in a way that shows love and perhaps lends a bit of comfort...well, it made me feel very grateful.

What is your favorite HS transportation moment?:
Four of us were in a car on the way to a gig at the end of the summer of 2000. I can't remember where it was. Mashpee? That sounds right. Either way, we were wrapping up recording and had only a few small performances left. We were set to move out of our house on 110 Long Pond in a few days. We were in Billy's car and running late  so we decided to start warming up. Rather than sing scales, we took an inventory and realized that we had all four parts for "Why Should I Cry For You". Someone hummed a pitch and we started singing. Because it was the end of the summer, we were in lock-step. Every chord rang and it was effortless, though no one but us was there to hear it. We finished and there was a pause before Billy said, "I won't be able to do this next week." And we all sort of nodded, feeling nostalgia for a present that, while fleeting, was not quite past.

What was your craziest HS tour adventure?:
I've only been on one tour and nothing crazy happened. Well, someone delivered a baby and a few of us rescued some orphans from a burning building. Oh, and the bank heist. And the bomb-defusing. But that's pretty boilerplate for us.

Though not a tour story per se, I was in a far off region of Uganda for work one summer recently. We were doing a humanitarian assessment in an area that was not very safe. I was sitting in an armored vehicle flanked by a Ugandan military escort (think pick-up trucks and AK-47's). I was wearing a helmet and flak jacket which was slowly cutting off circulation to my legs. Someone put in a Bill Withers CD and "Lean on Me" came on. We sang that when I was in the group and suddenly I was thinking about the Cape and smiling and laughing to myself. And then I thought, "How weird is it that I'm sitting here in a flak jacket, thinking about the Sound when there could be armed agro-pastoralists in the bushes up there waiting to ambush this convoy?"

It was kind of surreal.

What is your favorite HS recording?:
No question: "Heaven on Their Minds". My college group sang that arrangement the year before the Sound did and I remember Samrat teaching it to us as he came up with it himself (as is his way sometimes). So that song has a special place for me. But what the Sound did with it was amazing (I wasn't in the group then, so this doesn't count as bragging). And Bonk sings an incredible solo. Yeah. His voice is pretty okay.

Jason Sings-- "Pinball Wizard":