Patrick was just 13 years old when he found out what he wanted to put his passions and interest towards, whether it made him successful or not. He was a pre-teen rebel at the infamous Rooftop Middle School in the city of San Francisco. Life wasn't easy for the de-facto leader of the band growing up. His beloved grandfather passed away when Patrick was aged four, and spent nearly his whole childhood sheltered and isolated from "the in-crowd." When he was just aged 13, he bought his first electric guitar at a mom-and-pop music store, and painstakingly practiced and procastinated when learning how to play the guitar.
While he wasn't particularly skilled as a musician, at least not yet by conventional standards, Patrick was going to Cumberland Church every Sunday in the Chinatown. It was here! Where he met his soon-to-be high school classmate Tommy and struck a close friendship which lasted since day one. The two friends began establishing themselves with aspirations to become professional - or semi-professional yet amateur - musicians and were damn passionate about playing rock & roll music. Regardless what many critics and haters thought of them since day one, never letting those jeers and poor criticism discourage their passion for playing music in garage bands. Tommy and Patrick formed a garage punk duo called Goldenweasel (which eventually became Band of Asians), and it was the tail end of the 90's as the two were about to graduate from 8th grade with diplomas before luxoriously attending Raoul Wallenberg Traditonal High School as freshmen.
Whilst their freshmen years in high school, Napster and mp3 technology was changing the way the music industry and how bands, musicians, any many other things could be heard and distributed. Computers and Internet, while still in its pre-Facebook days, were becoming more affordable for home office usage and digital music software was replacing the 4-track Tascam! While the Internet didn't virally made Patrick Lew a very successful millionaire rock & roll superstar with millions of "likes" or "fans" on Facebook, it did give him and a million other unsigned bands locally an option to get heard. But realizing the oversaturation of the Net of dozens and dozens of unsigned bands putting themselves out there, Lew had a lesson to learn in later years.
The next step meant! Jamming in their garage, playing their music aimlessly to create instrumental and songwriting ideas, fine tuning their musicianship, and everything else. This took quite a long time, as Lew procrastinated and practiced for years on-and-off to consolidate himself as a guitarist, songwriter, and musician. Plowing through a series of unsuccessful garage bands, and battling his own problems in his life before putting it back together.
In 2008, that dream being a successful musician making money, touring and performing in bands across nightclubs and theaters, and being super publicized and making professional studio recordings, were slowly but surely fading. Even though realizing music wasn't going to pay the utility bills, groceries, and the rent, Lew enrolled into a university in Hayward called CSUEB. Resumed his music as mainly a hobby, but cutting any expensive seriousness that would devour time, money, and effort into making a music career work in the long run. He graduated university in June 2011 with a B.A. in Philosophy and Music. Although music was no longer meant for seriousness for a potential career and benefit. It didn't mean he had to quit doing what he loved doing. He had to make music primarily as a hobby, and play guitar with the friends he chose carefully to play music with as a favorite past-time when everyone isn't busy with school, work, and other important or busy things in life. Flashing back three years prior to graduating college, Lew formed the Patrick Lew Band - later band named the Electric Army or simply, Patrick Lew's Electric Army.
Together, the PLB Army recorded and created music at the expense of their much heavily invested musical gear that Lew spent on with some of his college aid money. Somewhere in Patrick Lew's king-size bedroom inside a house in Antioch, California, that became the band practice room for the PLB Army where they made music. Sometimes, digital and electronic collaboration via Internet was related to the music making priorities. Through Skype and private email messages through social-media website GIANT, Facebook. This led to how Lew created music alone and with the assistance of others as sidemen musicians on record.
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