MikeFev

About MikeFev

I pay 10 blincoins for shares!!!
It was never my plan to be a solo artist, I was asked many years ago by a producer if I just wanted to play, I said yes! I love to play!! At the time it seemed like a loaded question, and it was, I just didn’t fully realize it at the time, my bad. The whole conversation was pertaining to the recording of a compilation album that my name was to be on but my playing was not, seems like someone would be happy to get credited with something they didn’t do, not me, what if it sucked? In the end, the album was released and it didn’t suck, but it wasn’t me playing on it so I made no effort to promote it.

Dating back to elementary school, I made some effort of writing music and lyrics having little or no knowledge of how to create any lasting recordings, some of it might have been good but lack of equipment and technology, most of that material is lost in the sands of time or tucked into my memories somewhere. Sometimes memories are better than what really happened!!

As I hit my high school years, technology caught up in the form of affordable multitrack recording, I quickly saw a chance to capture my ideas on multiple instruments all played by me, at the time I was years ahead of my peers as far as a vision of material, and later teamed up with a wordsmith/guitarist for a while, who did and still does have a gift for lyrics. At the same time I tried to hone my writing skills too, high school angst songs, fun stuff, it was practice.

After high school I played nothing but bass every day for almost a year, and then went on a national cover band tour for 6 years!! I played bass every day, every night, and slept in between!! It was somewhere in the middle of that the credited recording that I never played on happened.

My tours were different every year for the first three years I had the opportunity to play with some amazing players and even a future Grammy award winner, afterwards, some of the guys and I formed a static band and even started writing original songs that were actually pretty good, I really put my heart and soul into that project for many reasons not the least of which was that we all seemed to have a common goal, and we were young and determined. But as with many lofty endeavors, eventually the grind burnt some people out and they changed their life plans, leaving me on my own again.

After the 6 years touring, I too was a little spent so I recharged my batteries by helping out my family with a business endeavor of theirs and did some songwriting in the evenings and weekends just to stay sharp, then I threw myself into the local music scene and played with anyone I could ironically not knowing anyone local, because I’d been on tour since right after high school!!!

I worked a daytime shift at a music store, bought some PA gear and started doing live sound production for local bands and eventually got some quality digital recording gear and that’s when I really began orchestrating my rock and roll compositions, I finally had a fully produced (by me) album!!

I then started working at a project recording studio, 16 tracks, no frills, prosumer quality, I definitely recommend doing your first demos and pre-production stuff at a project studio, low cost and you can get an idea of what you can sound like without breaking the bank!!

That chapter led to meeting an incredibly talented songwriter, who was so impressed with my playing and producing talents that he fired his bass player(his own brother)and hired me! We recorded for what seemed like two years and I still have the finished album, but due to the lack of management and some kind of terrible power tripping, it never actually got off the ground, ask me about the record with “the kid” I’ll give you a copy and you’ll be humming the songs for the rest of your life!

The studio also introduced me to another collaborator, who originally came in with his band, they were okay but the lead guy was really focused, he had a vision, I can always spot it, a few years later, the other guys had moved on, but the lead guy had kept coming back to lay down new ideas, but this one time the music just came alive, maybe it was magic, maybe familiarity, but that day, we created something special, not on purpose like it was a plan, but like an amazing flow of energy that just fell into place. We went on to record a full album and another full album, to this day, I don’t actually know what happened but there were very few gigs and eventually no more phone calls.

So, here I am, a guy who never wanted to be a solo artist, solo!! My plan was to be a part of something, most of the “musicians” that I was directly associated with are no longer actively playing in bands or solo, not that some of them couldn’t, but they shifted to something else, if they only knew what they could have been, what they meant to me?

So what’s next? Do I sit down and start writing a new batch of middle age angst tunes, put up a “the best bass player since (insert amazing bass player name here) ad. How about get myself an agent/manager at 15% to hype me up or save it and do it myself? The bottom line is, if you want to see and hear a great player/performer/musician, you need to see me, once you do, you’ll see and hear what you’ve been missing. But in the end, you’ll understand that I just want to play.