With an open mind and musical abilities on all necessary instruments as well as some own experience in songwriting, I decided to start writing on a prog album during my first term at university. By the time, we were recording an album with my punk rock band (guitar) and demos with my hard rock band (drums). Everything besides my engineering studies was set for music. In the evenings, I was writing songs and on the weekends we usually played gigs with the bands. It took me until late 2012 to finish all the songs for my first prog album and through my bands I had a few friends who would help me record vocals and solo parts for guitar and synth that I either didn’t want to or simply wasn’t able to play. The idea of a solo project with guest appearances started to grow.

In 2013, I bought a new electric guitar – a sunburned telecaster by G&L, which I still use today! With this, I started to record the guitars for ‘my album’. The technical challenges were huge and I had to improve my abilities on guitar a lot. Recording is always a rollercoaster ride between frustration and pride but fortunately I have a strong will in accomplishing my goals that helped me move forward. After all it took almost four years to finish the recording in a way that I was contended with everything. For more background information on the making of my first album, please check out its individual page as this article is meant to cover a more general perspective on my history.

I learned a lot about recording and production during these years with two more albums we recorded with my hard rock band that were released in 2014 and 2017, as well as another musical project with a friend focused on electronic music (!) for which we released an EP also in 2017. Meanwhile I dug even deeper into the prog world with lots of new music that I discovered and a growing record collection. I was even writing new material for a potential second album by that time – I was really busy with making music and exploring my abilities and my musical vision.

But first things first – the ‘new child’ still needed a name…

tbc