It started in 1996... Four high school freshmen gathered in a basement with some musical instruments and a common love for music. The songs were mediocre and the musicianship was merely sufficient, but still they played and practiced. Three years passed and the group, which had taken the name Empathy, set out to record their debut album Brother. The band was still immature and the final product left much to be desired, but it was a valuable learning experience nevertheless. Since the 1999 release of Brother, Empathy has grown incredibly as individuals and as a group. Through endless practicing and numerous performances, the four-piece rock band has established a substantial fan base in central Ohio and various other areas around the state. This was the experience under the belt that the band lacked when creating Brother, and it would be essential to creating songs of which they were proud. By the summer of 2002, the band was ready. Empathy launches into the present with a decisively solid and mature sound, which is captured in their new album My Atmosphere (November 2002). The full-length, 12-song disc demonstrates the musicality and maturity of the group while touching upon many different ends of the musical spectrum. Many are captivated by the band's brooding and melodic songs, which are consistently focused on the thoughts, feelings, emotions and experiences true to their creators and relative to real life. John Garrot of Columbus Alive describes the music of Empathy as ".... a very strange paradox. It's neither mellow nor angry, neither rowdy nor contained. It is majestic." As Empathy strives to better themselves as people and musicians, they will continue to project their lives onto the lives of others in order to better understand the world in which they live. This projection is otherwise known as empathy.