Jason Webley - Early Life

Early Life

In high school, Webley played in a punk band called Moral Minority. He picked up the accordion in 1996 in his last year in college at the University of Washington when he was part of a performance of Bertolt Brecht's play The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and wrote a couple of songs for the play on the accordion. He later recalled, "I was just a geeky kid; accordion came later. It's since playing accordion that I've become cool. I used to be a geek with an electric guitar. I had a guitar and played in punky bands and I had a computer. I sequenced stuff. I was much geekier."

In the spring of 1998 Webley quit his day job, picked up his accordion, and hopped on a Greyhound bus with the intention of playing in the streets until his money ran out.

He used to pretend to die every Halloween only to be born in the spring (usually around May Day or Webley's springtime birthday). Webley first "died" on Halloween of 2000 when, after a concert, he led his fans to a park on the University of Washington campus and had a group of women take off his signature porkpie hat and black trench coat, which were burned. He then had his head shaved, was placed in a coffin and driven away in a hearse, and disappeared for six months. At the 2005 Halloween show he stated that he no longer wanted to live and die with the seasons. He did not die that year, and is expected to continue not dying on future Halloweens.