INTRODUCTION
I'm originally from Canada, but have been living in Asia since 1992. I came to Singapore in 2003, and started performing music here in 2011. I work for a research firm, but in the media relations side - I stay in contact
with journalists and send them research to help them write their stories, or
set up interviews if they want to talk to someone who's knowledgeable in a
certain field. But in my spare time I'm heavily involved with music. I was the lead singer and vocalist of two heavy metal bands: Supertzar and MegalomaniA. Both started out as Black Sabbath tribute bands, but once we got good and tight, we started writing and recording our original songs. Each band put out one album - Supertzar is self-titled, and Megalomania's is called Escape The World.
MegalomaniA is on long-term hiatus now (although we put out a Coronavirus song this year via remote collaboration), so I played in a few short-lived bands like The Sinisters (all members were left-handed), Motör-Apes (a masked band that played horror-rock covers) and The Es (mellow acoustic drone - coincidentally, another band with the same name started up in Singapore around the same time). None of these bands ever recorded.
I got started planning my solo material around 2019, and in 2020 and 20201 when Covid hit I put out an album of rock music, an album of country music, a few covers, one doom metal track under the name Von Doom, and quite a lot of experimental stuff. All of my solo tracks have videos to go with them too, and I also managed development of the MegalomaniA music videos for "The Wurdalak" and "Lockdown Rockdown".
In the second half of 2020 I put started working on material the weekly video podcast I just launched in January 2021 called Monometa. Each episode is a narration of a self-contained short story I have written, set to ambient guitar feedback. The videos are made up of layers of clips I've taken on my iPhone, with public domain material and animations from my original illustrations stacked on top. The video will be hosted on YouTube, the audio-only versions on the regular podcast platforms.
In better times, I also played acoustic guitar and sang at open mics - mainly easy rock, folk and country covers, but also some originals.
PLAYING STYLE
Rudimentary. I took piano lessons as a kid, but was never really that interested in it. At least I learned a bit of piano theory. Later on I got hooked on guitar music and never turned back. I finally started on acoustic over 20 years ago, but never managed to find a good teacher, so what I've managed to achieve is all self-taught. I mostly strum cowboy chords on the acoustic guitar, so many of my songs are three-chorders. I later invested in some electric guitars, and over the years I've built up a nasty pedalboard that can put out some pretty punishing tones. Many of the songs I put together more recently feature thick layers of guitar feedback - I did this on one track on my first solo album, I did this across the Von Doom track "Doom It", and it's the main colour of the backing track to my Monometa podcasts. I actually recorded about 90 minutes of feedback for that project, and I'll need all of it since there are going to be 50+ podcast episodes, each one 10 minutes or so long.
In terms of inspiration, who else but Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, and all the other guitar greats? But beyond that, I guess you could say some of the more drone-like Japanese noise musicians, like Aube, Merzbow, Masonna and the musicians that put together certain drone-y Boredoms releases. Earth is another big inspiration, Boris too, as are Sunn O))) and Sonic Youth... And Swans! Droning and repetition is something I like a lot in my music, it's really now coming to the fore with Monometa, and I'd like to explore it further if possible with the Von Doom stuff as well, which I see as a band with two or three members, so I'm looking for collaborators here, heh heh...
In terms of warm-up, I don't have one for electric guitar, but - since I'm also a singer - when I pull out the acoustic I work for a while without music to see how many songs I can play completely from memory: full lyrics and chords, beginning to end. When I was practicing daily, I probably had 90 minutes of music fully memorised, including some very long songs like Bob Dylan's "Murder Most Foul" (17 minutes), but as Covid drags on I find myself playing less and less, since I'm really only playing for myself and my wife now, and my wife's not crazy about all this stuff. It's all quite sad, actually...
MAIN INSTRUMENTS
Since I'm a lefty, it's always been hard to find good guitars. My friend Patrick's company Seagull makes a very nice lefty acoustic called S6, so I got one and that's my go-to acoustic - it's a beautiful guitar with a great tone. For electrics, my first was a stratocaster, but after a few years I got a black Gibson SG, which now gets all of my love. I really HAD to get an SG, due to my love of the guitar playing of Tony Iommi and Black Sabbath (as well as many other fine musicians including Angus Young, Robby Krieger, Frank Zappa, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Frank Marino, Pete Townsend), but the SG is a great little guitar and I get some incredible sounds out of it. I bought it on a business trip to Toronto (ironically, that's my hometown) and it was the first lefty SG I ever came across, a black 2011 Gibson SG Standard. Love at first sight. I've only ever played it live once - at the one-and-only Sinisters gig at the old Sportsman Bar at Far East Shopping Centre.
OTHER EQUIPMENT
I've got three distortion pedals on my pedal board and an overdrive, which is pretty crazy - I find different pedals work better with different amp settings, or different pickup settings. The Distortion Factory pedal from Boss is probably my favourite, but I like my Shure Riot too. Some of them work better on the Strat, some better on the SG. Some of them work well together, and some of them work well with my other pedals, which include a Sub 'n' Up octaver and my Janus pedal from Walrus Audio. The Janus is a dual pedal with a fuzz and a tremolo, each one uses a joystick to control the sounds, which can achieve all sorts of wonderful results. I previously used a wah, which I'd turn on and leave in a position to maintain a certain drilling tone, but I like the setup that I have. I'm dreaming about future gigs where I put it on a table, instead of the floor, and manipulate it with my hands instead of my feet, but I think we're pretty far away from that. In terms of vocals, I also have a great Boss VE-5 that gives me amazing results too, but that's another story.
OTHER LOCAL GUITARISTS/BASSISTS YOU FIND INTERESTING
Singapore's full of great musicians, and lots of amazing guitarists and bassists. Paul Danial is the metal pyrotechnician. Randolf Arriola blows my mind any time I watch him play, his mastery of technique, technology and feel is just so cool. Rasyid from Wormrot is astounding the way he somehow manages to fill in the sound so well - he's the only guitarist in the band, and there's no bassist! Victor Chen from General Lee with his mastery of blues and guitar knowledge is also a real inspiration. Bo Skullbanger's signature chugging and vast tone. My buddy Seth Roach, who fronted Blues Machine for a while a few years back at the Crazy Elephant, is an inspiration as a guitarist - a multi-instrumentalist, actually - a singer and a compelling frontman all in one. And I can't forget the guitarist of my band MegalomaniA, Faz Aron, who's an amazing guitarist for jamming on nearly any kind of tune - a consummate professional, and a great guy. He played on the MegalomaniA album, but also did great acoustic work for my solo song "Spinal Reconstruction Blues".
PHOTO ABOVE
My main guitars are my Gibson SG Standard 2011 and my Seagull S6 acoustic, both lefties (like me). I bought the SG on a trip from Singapore to my hometown of Toronto, and the Seagull is Canadian-made, so I guess it’s a taste of home. I play standard stuff on the S6, and use the SG to rip feedback, or play Black Sabbath/Sabbath-inspired numbers in honour of my guitar hero, Tony Iommi.