Music
My Releases
Despite being a working drummer for over 25 years and contributing to writing and arranging for other artists, I hadn't released my own music since 1995.
I have never lacked ideas for rhythms or arranging parts for songs. Covid forced me to focus on my home recording technology and skills. I'm very proud of the sound quality that can be achieved with good equipment and well-tuned drums.
Made in a similar fashion to Random Misfires, most of these songs started as drum parts and were built up from there. Doug Down Deep and RIPAL were written on the keyboard as tributes to two friends, Doug Chase and Alex Abraham, who left us way too early. A bunch of friends were kind enough to play on each of these tracks. And once again Pete Weiss contributed his guitar wizardry and mixing/mastering skills.
This was my first release under my own name. I had been writing and refining a series of solo drum pieces over the years, and I narrowed it down to about 20 that I decided to record. The cover art is a photo of my grandfather.
My goal for each of them was to be interesting and melodic enough to stand on their own. But as I got deeper into the project, I started hearing bass lines and melodies on them. At this point, I was in a long period of recovery and therapy resulting from several strokes that I had suffered back in 2015.
I dove head first into turning these drum grooves into full songs, writing on the keyboard. I enlisted Pete Weiss to engineer, mix, and master the album in addition to playing guitar on a few. And Dana Colley worked his magic adding some beautiful woodwind parts.