Who are your musical inspirations and what was the inspiration behind the album and the songs? My musical inspirations are as vast and varied as my songwriting. I have been performing professionally since I was 15 years old. As nearly everyone starting out in a band knows, you have to play cover songs, if you want to play out and get paid. For many years I performed songs in the Top 40 United States Billboard charts. I did not particularly like a lot of what I played, but it expanded my musical tastes and repertoire. Along the way, I now like songs and artists who I arrogantly discarded, or who were before my time such as Sam Cooke. I am for the first time releasing singles in advance of the album. In this case I am releasing two singles in Europe. I currently have two albums worth of material and each song will be on separate albums. One of the albums will be of newer songs and another will older material. The first song I will tell you about is ‘The Artist’. I am known for my album ‘Donald Dean Nightshift’ and received many great reviews. The first review I read was from Nicky Baldrian. For many music aficionados in the ‘Melodic Rock’ community around the world, it is a must have in their collection. I have seen used copies of it on Ebay for over $100. Prior to ‘Donald Dean Nightshift’ I had regional airplay and success in the United States, with my group called ‘Velocity’ it was during this time I wrote and recorded ‘The Artist’. I am releasing this song as a ‘deep cut’ single. It was recorded with all the original members of ‘Velocity’, including Bass/Keyboardist extraordinaire Mike Brown, who appears on all the songs on both upcoming new albums. The second song I will tell you about is ‘Do It for Tomorrow… Today’ This is my newest completed composition. I first recorded three demos of this song, each with a different style, tempo and chorus. I did not like any of them. I loved the verse lyrics, but hated the chorus. When it came down to laying down the basic tracks to the new album, I had to edit one of the demos as a guide track and hoping some way I could use it. My bass player Mike Brown traveled from Junction City Kansas to Los Angeles Ca. to record my new album, so we did not have much time. This was a song recorded as an afterthought. After a few weeks after the session, I started recording an acoustic guitar part on the song when my engineer Jason Siler called me in from control room and said ‘you need to come in here and listen to this’ It sounded great and the acoustic guitar gave the song a new life. During that same session, I came up with the signature opening line guitar riff, which prompted me to buy a 12 string 330 Rickenbacker in which we recorded the riff with. The next problem was the chorus and before I could go any further I had to come up with something quick. I am concerned about mankind and several other issues, but I believe climate change is first on my list. I was told I would be creating controversy and would get a lot of negative responses. I said ‘I don’t f**king care’. The first video of the song features the words and not me. What are your interests outside of music? I am an avid fan of the NFL football team the Green Bay Packers and own stock in the team. I try to go to a game or two every year. . I have of course seen them several times in Green Bay as well as on the road in St. Louis, Arizona, San Diego, and San Francisco. I also enjoy taking photographs at the games and have taken literally thousands of photographs. I also enjoy working on my Corvettes and Mercedes 450SL and spending time with my friends and family. There is so many things to do in Southern California and I do enjoy great year around weather, beaches, clubs, concerts, cultural diversity etc… this metropolitan area provides. Could you tell our readers about the band and what makes you different from other artists? I have a unique voice as well as write in wide array of musical styles. I have written my first country song called ‘I Used to Be a Cowboy’. The song has a country flavor with a cool guitar riff, but has a political message that may go over some people heads. My new single ‘Do It for Tomorrow… Today’ is basically a modern/retro 1960’s protest song that is up-tempo. I also have a have a song called ‘How Long Must the Rain Keep Falling’ that features predominately a classical guitar and vocal. One of my earlier songs is a song called ‘The Maiden Voyage’. It is a tour de force that starts out as a basic rocker, morphs into a funky jazz groove and winds up a full on Jazz Rock Fusion improvised free for all. All that being said, my heart I love hard rock! One of those songs is My ‘Deep Cut single ‘The Artist’. Tell me about the album? Actually I have two albums coming out. That is the purpose of releasing two singles. I am promoting singles from each album with videos both official, lyrical, and live versions of the songs. This is a different way of promoting, than I have ever been involved in before. It seems like a lot of people nowadays, just want to listen to different single songs, by different artists. The two new albums are completely different yet the same. The album ‘Velocity’ has original songs recorded before the ‘Donald Dean Nightshift’ album with new overdubs, as well as songs written during that time period and recorded recently. ‘The Artist’ is currently released as the first deep cut single from this album. The song ‘Castaway’ will be the next single. ‘Kid Gloves’ originally intended for a major feature film title song, is included, as well as the epic deep cut ‘Stranger’ plus several other originals. There are bonus tracks including the original recorded killer version of ‘Your Disguise’, live covers and demos. The other album is called ‘Beyond the Rise and the Fall’ which is the album’s title song. This album is all new original material including the song I am currently releasing as the first single ‘Do It for Tomorrow… Today’. Other songs included are ‘I Used to Be a Cowboy’, ‘How Long Must the Rain Keep Falling’, the motown influenced social commentary ‘I Still Believe’, Progressive Rock influenced ‘deep cut’ magnum opus ‘Galaxy, the bluesy ‘Pain in my Heart’, ‘How About Me’ and Grammy winning producer Dennis MacKay, who was involved in preproduction said his personal favorite song of the album is ‘Trouble’ This all in all, is a very eclectic group of songs that have stretched my boundaries as an artist as well as individual who wants to share ideas, thoughts and provoke thought. What is the difference between the new material and your last album? The difference between my new material and my last album ‘Donald Dean Nightshift’ is half of the songs were written in about a month. The rest of the songs I wrote a few years before. It took almost five years for the album to be released and another five years before it was discovered worldwide via the internet. Most of the material could be described as ‘80’s Melodic Rock. The new albums ‘Velocity’ and ‘Beyond the Rise and the Fall’ were finished recorded in 2017. Instead of releasing two albums at the same time, I decided to release different singles from both albums several times during this year. Late in 2017, I will release one or both albums. This way I can properly promote both albums and let people be familiar with the songs. Selling music is not my first priority, having the people who enjoy my music continuing to have something new to listen to, is. This is an exciting time for musicians, as long as they are in it for the right reason. My reason is to create music, record, perform, make compelling videos, and interact with people who enjoy music. Where was it recorded who produced it and how long did the process take? Both albums were recorded in several studios mostly in the Los Angeles, Ca area. The ‘Velocity’ album had five basic tracks recorded in Salina Kansas. The basic tracks for the rest of the album and ‘Beyond the Rise and the Fall ‘album were recorded at The People’s Music Recording Studio, in Los Angeles during August 2016. Jason Siler was the engineer. The song ‘How Long Must The Rain Keep Falling’ classical guitar was recorded at The Doug Grean Studio in Pasadena, in April 2016 with Doug Grean engineering. The rest was recorded and mixed at Little Fox Records and Jason Siler’s studio in Los Angles between 2015 thru 2017 with Jason Siler as the engineer. The mastering was done at The Audio Labs by James Saez and by Scott Friedman in his studio. I produced both albums with a lot of help from everyone involved, especially Jason Siler and Executive Producer Vannessa Lehmkuhl. You could say the process took from 1995 till 2017 because that is the time between albums. What's in store for the future? I am going to broaden my audience via the latest technology. Release the albums ‘Velocity’ and ‘Beyond the Rise and the Fall’. I will try to keep evolving as an artist, person, and professionally. As much as love living in Southern California, I see a possible tour of Japan and Europe. I have resisted touring opportunities in the past and know several musician friends who have been, or currently touring outside America. I lived in Japan for three years and always wanted to see Europe. I hope I get to meet everyone who reads this article. Cheers!