Secondhand Serenade  Secondhand Serenade is an American rock band, led by vocalist, pianist and guitarist John Vesely. Vesely has released four studio albums to date under the name Secondhand Serenade: "Awake" in 2007, "A Twist in My Story" in 2008, "Hear Me Now" in 2010, and "Undefeated" in 2014. His debut album used multitrack recording to create the sound of a band using technology, while his second album took a different path, using a proper band and synthesizers to establish a more accomplished sound. John Vesely formed Secondhand Serenade in his home town of Menlo Park in California, USA, in 2004. Vesely was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area in a humorous family and as the son of a jazz musician. He started getting into music at the age of 12. He spent 8 years playing bass in local bands, featuring in a number of acts ranging in style from ska and hardcore to rock and pop. One of the bands he played in, Sounds Like Life, included fellow Bay Area artist Ronnie Day. After years of playing bass, he opted for an acoustic guitar. Vesely follows in the tradition of John Ondrasik's Five for Fighting. Vesely was also the son of a Czech immigrant.John Vesely finds success as Secondhand Serenade. While some artists may fear the rawness of playing with just an acoustic guitar, John welcomes the honesty it comes along with. He claims "in some ways a band is more powerful, but in other ways there are things you can do with one voice and one acoustic guitar that you couldn't do with an army of musicians behind you." In 2005, Vesely released his debut album titled "Awake". It was recorded as a demo, after booking a few days at a San Francisco studio earlier in 2005, "using just an acoustic guitar and his multi-tracked vocals." The album was promoted through the Secondhand Serenade MySpace page and by playing local shows. The CDs were originally sold through mail order with a PayPal account by Vesely, eventually he signed up with distributor TuneCore, making Secondhand Serenade's songs available on music portals including iTunes. The album experienced tremendous online support, and by the end of 2006 Secondhand Serenade had received millions of plays on MySpace and had been the social-networking site's No. 1 Independent Artist for months.