BYRON
NEMETH
100 WORLDS WILL BE THE DYNAMIC
FOLLOW UP TO LAST YEAR'S CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED "2000" CD AND "POWER TO DESTROY"
SINGLE, WITH THE MILLENNIUM RELEASE OF HIS DEBUT SOLO CD BYRON ESTABLISHED
HIS REPUTATION AS A WORLD CLASS GUITAR PLAYER AND ACCOMPLISHED PRODUCER.
1.GIVE US A SHORT BIOGRAPHY,
NAMING ALL THE BANDS YOU PLAYED IN.
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The beginning of Sacred Heart
was set around 85/86. Our first and only demo was made in 89/90. I was
21 or 22 at that time. I found the band with the drummer and another guitarist,
we wanted to play metal in the style which at that time was coming from
Europe and Germany specifically, we tried to imitate this style rather
faithfully. We had called ourselves Sacred Heart because we wanted a positive
name that people could easily identify with. We played a lot of live shows
in cities all around Ohio and the mid-west. We also played the big Heavy
Artillery concert for the Auburn Records compilation release of the same
name. This was organized by Bill Peters, owner of Auburn Records at the
time and promoter for this show. It was at the Phantasy Theater (Cleveland
Area) with most of the bands on the compilation tape playing this big show,
just some of the bands that played were Breaker, Chemikill, Real Steel,
Purgatory, Torment, Hatrix, Wretch, Severe Warning, Attaxe and us, their
were definitely 10 to 15 bands as far as I can remember. Every band played
about 30 to 45 minutes, their must have been about 800 to 900 people for
sure, it was a grandiose concert in Cleveland that was a tremendous success
for Bill and Auburn records. We also did other shows with Shok Paris, they
were wild and crazy shows, they were totally nice with us gave us soundchecks
and everything, I still see Eric every once in a while and we mostly talk
about the good old days.
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I had heard on Bill's radio
show that he was going to do this so I gave him a few practice tapes from
our rehearsal studio. He came out to see us play live and then decided
to include us in the compilation album, "Time After Time" was everybody's
favorite song so that was the one that we went with for the compilation.
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We had a lot more song's but
we did not have enough money to do a whole album, at that time I did not
have my own studio like I do now. If we had done a whole album it would
have been great at the time.
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I have never been in a
coverband in my life. I was always in all original bands and I value that
artistically very much. It is very hard to have large success and bar bands
are a dime a dozen, I rather go down in flames of glory that to play someone
else's music and not be a REAL artist.
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We made a 1000 units and had
them all sold in the space of that summer, 150 to 200 units were used as
promotional material and now I have only about 100 units left. For a demo
in was a real successes.
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Bands are stupid, quarrel and
break up. They don't see this as a real business and are not prepared to
make the commitments necessary to make it a business success. Way to many
musicians that don't see huge success right away immediately start to get
discourage and just wind up getting regular jobs, get married or whatever,
and before they know it their not as passionate about their instrument
let alone their band and just give up music in life. This is very sad artistically,
and you have to wonder were the true love of music as a composer and performer
went to.
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I founded a new band called
Amon-Ra, It lasted almost a year. We made a CD named "In The Company Of
The Gods". I wrote some songs by myself and the other were co-written.
Like before we had 1000 CD printed sold almost all of them and had 100
for promotional material that went to all of the radio stations. This CD
is little known to the European collector, the reason why is that with
Sacred Heart we had Auburn as a label to promote the cassette, with Amon-Ra
we did not have a label with contacts in Europe, had I known of you guys
I would have sent you copies.
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They were our Alter Ego's !
(ha, ha, ha,) They were all based on Egyptian mythology. We wanted the
band to have a binding theme. It should have been explored even more into
the career of the band with the release of the second CD that we had planned,
but the band broke up before that was to happen, maybe on the second CD
we could have had a totally different concept, Iron Maiden did something
totally different after "Powerslave".
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We had an Egyptian made
drum-kit and backdrops, it looked very cool for the people that got to
see our live shows.
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The keyboardist and me were
making a lot of progress with our writing, after the band ended we started
a new band, we decided to call it Prodigy and record a three-song demo
tape, this was before the techno band Prodigy came out, when they came
out we changed the name to Voices, had a few personnel changes again and
Electro-Motive-Force was born, this was my first instrumental band. Both
bands lasted about a year and a half.
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I'm definitely not a singer,
I'm not that brave. I am a guitarist, songwriter, producer and I can play
keyboards a little bit. I think that somebody who wants to be considered
a real lead vocalist needs to have it naturally from birth and needs to
be continually working at it just like any other serious instrumentalist.
I have played the guitar all my life and have written songs and worked
in all types of studios with all types of musician's and thee hardest things
is trying to find great singer that could constantly sing on key and in
pitch and who could interpret the art of music in a band that I would be
happy to be in. There are vocal bands that I like a lot like UFO &
Dream Theater, If I were to do a vocal band it would be in that style,
an artistic version of both of those bands. If the right singer comes along
I'm totally open to explore that area musically.
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I believe that it has changed,
I have grown a lot as a musician by listening to a lot of non-rock music
that I love just as much like Classical and Jazz music. In these fields
only the truly great instrumentalists can survive. You can't find bad players
in these kinds of music, your either great in the orchestra or your not
in it. These concepts have been influencing me a lot lately in the rock'n
roll I've been playing lately, If I could find a great singer that I could
work with I would consider going back to mainstream vocal rock music with
a progressive flair. Until that happens I'm going to continue to play technically
demanding instrumental music
2.HOW DIFFICULT IS IT FOR A MUSICIAN
TO BE ON HIS OWN AND NOT HAVING A BAND SUPPORTING HIM?
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Very hard, that’s why I hire great
players around me.
3.WHICH ARE YOUR MAIN INFLUENCES? WHO
ARE THOSE THAT MADE YOU PICK UP A GUITAR AND START SCRATCHING IT? WHICH
ARTISTS DO YOU LOOK UP TO?
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Randy Rhodes
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Michael Schenker
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Steve Vai
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Al De Meola
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Joe Satriani
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I look up to all of them.
4.EXCEPT FOR ELECTRIC GUITAR, WHICH
OTHER INSTRUMENT WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN PLAYING?
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I play currently also play:
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Keys
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Drums
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Bass
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Mandolin
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+
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Compose
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arrainge
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engineer
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produce
5.DON'T YOU THINK THAT FROM A POINT
ON THAT THE RELEASES OF THE GUITAR VIRTUOSO'S LOSE THEIR MEANING? I MEAN
THEY ARE MOSTLY FOR MUSICIANS THAN FOR ORDINARY LISTENERS AND FANS. WHAT
DO YOU THINK?
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Yes, to a point—that’s why I’m trying
to do commercially viable albums that are still instrumental
6.WHAT ARE YOU THINKING FOR THE FUTURE?
TO CREATE A PROJECT MAYBE? WHICH IS THE MOST AMBITIOUS DREAM YOU HAVE REGARDING
MUSIC?
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To be as big and as respected as Steve
Vai around the world To compose music for George Lucas in the Star Wars
movies To open Pacifica Studios around the world in the following cities:
London, NYC, LA, Tokyo, Paris. And no I’m not kidding………………………….
7.A BOOK "WORKING MUSICIANS" WILL SOON
BE PUBLISHED. YOU WILL BE FEATURED IN, IN THE CHAPTER "IN THE STUDIO".
HOW WAS THIS ARRANGED?HOW DID IT HAPPEN? WHO CAME NEAR YOU?
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Bruce the writer of the book approached
me about a year ago, he had heard of my reputation from other people, had
been to my web sites and decided to contact me and include me in the book.
8.TELL US A FEW THINGS FOR YOUR LATEST
ALBUM. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO COMPOSE AND ARRANGE THE MSUIC AS WELL? I
THINK YOU DID THE PRODUCTION AS WELL.
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It’s not that it’s hard it’s that it
takes a really long time to get done because there is so much attention
to detail, this next CD “100 WORLDS” Is already 9 months into production
and still not done, the new web site for the cd has been being worked on
fopr the past 4 months and still not done and the cover design for “100
WORLDS” (done by www.artnoize.com ) is 6 months into it and still not done.
I’m trying to have EVERYTHING READY by August 1st when the Book with Bruce
comes out.
9.WHAT ARE THE LYRICS TALKING ABOUT?
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“100 WORLDS” will be ALL INSTRUMENTAL
10.WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN'T
ABLE TO COMPOSE MUSIC?
11.WHICH IS MAN'S BIGGEST TEMPTATION?
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Girls calling me all the time to come
over and hang out at the studio and not being able to work on “100 WORLDS”
12.IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE, WHICH
HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY?
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Nothing from the past, I want to go
into the future the perfect world we all want won’t be available for at
least another 200 years from now………………….
13.WHAT WOULD YOU MISS THE MOST FROM
OUR TIME?
14.THANK YOU!IS THERE ANYTHING I FORGOT
TO ASK YOU AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?
thanks !!!!!!
NIKOS "William_Kidd"PARASTATIDIS