I have been writing music for about six years. My style is generally pop rock but I also enjoy writing ballads and progressive rock/metal.

Brief History

For four years, beginning in 1990, I was the rhythm/lead guitarist for a band I put together in the town of Hay in South West N.S.W. called Live Wire. The band was well recieved by the small town's audience and for two of the four years they were booked regularly each week for weddings, birthdays, and special events. The band also had a regular spot at one of the local hotels. The band were essentially a covers band playing the typical Aussie Pub Rock songs that are standards for most covers bands.
At the band's busiest point the set consisted of over fifty songs, about 15% of which were originals written by me. It was at this point, at the end of 1994, the members of the band made decisions that forced the band to part. I was offered a position at university for a composition course but I declined the offer, opting instead to go for an Audio Engineering/Music Industy Studies course.

It is in the thick of university life and the musical environment that I now live that I write songs with new sounds and new arrangements.

Current

My past projects were rearrangements of songs I have had floating around for years. I have taken the chord progression from one song that I wrote about four years ago, and reworked it adding more progressions, riffs and a new arrangement. The reason for this reworking is because I liked the song in its original form but I knew it could be a lot better. I knew I could give it a direction. After listening to Dream Theater's Images and Words album one day, I became inspired and wrote like mad.
What eventuated was more lyrics, a new vocal melody, an entirely different feel (from triplet to sixteenth), new key and more sections.
The song was recorded in Studio B at SCU on a 16 channel analogue E-16 Fostex machine. I used acoustic drums, bass, guitars and keys and vocals. The drums and bass and a guide gtr were recorded in one pass after a number of takes. I then recorded the guitars and keys and then added lead guitar. The vocals were done prior to mixdown which was onto DAT.

Another song that I had been doing some things with is a song that I wrote last year while feeling a bit homesick. Its begins with 12 string acoustic playing a chord progression that one of my friends says sounds like a "leaving home" sort of song. Cool! That is the exact desired effect!
I recorded the song in Studio B at SCU on the same Fostex machine with the same musicians but with a Roland drumm amchine instead of acoustic drums. As a result of having a drum machine the song turned out a lot less noisier and tighter. I think this song became the better of the two that I recorded in Studio B, although I still want to re-record both songs in Studio A.
Other songs I'm working on at the moment are two heavy rock songs. One is a basic straight down the line rock based song with a vocal sound that I got by cranking the pre-amp and boosting 1 and 2 k on the EQ. The sound is very telephone or megaphone sounding and it gives the song a different sound. This song has already been recorded however I plan to redo the gtr parts and remix the song. It was recorded in Studio A at SCU on 3 Tascam DA-88's meaning 24 channels all up. I used my Alesis SR16 drum machine and my new baby, my Gibson Les Paul Standard Tabbacco Sunburst, through an all tube Peavey Classic 30.

The second song I'm recording on Tuesday is more progressive rock and features a breakdown section where I'll get my keyboardist to play a sort of merry-go-round sound in the tradition of Pink Floyd's Poles Apart. The song goes for nearly eight minutes and consists of many sections of the same chords but with a different feel. It is very guitar driven and as such I'm getting two og the best rock guitarists at uni to play on the song. It should be recorded on Tuesday and I'll mix it at a later date.

Future

I want to write a lot more Dream Theater meets Pink Floyd sort of music. Don't laugh, I think it's possible.

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The background image on this page is copyright 1996 John W.Stetzer 111