My Music

Warnings – Asopriam

Asopriam was a high school indie /alternative rock band hailing from the small mountain town of Mariposa, California near the majestic Yosemite National Park.  Talk about a backdrop for creating music!  The core quintessential members were Ross, Bret Wice, Brock Redding and Jeremy Clark.  A small rotating cast of friends and musicians would also play with the core members between 1994 and 2006 before Bret Wice would return to lead his project, Moon in Leo.   The album’s artwork and vision were by Ross’s old friend and songwriting partner Bret Wice.  He brought a harder, punchier and more rocking sound that he would later lead Moon in Leo with.  Bret really took the reins on this record to push us to a more defined and harder sound.   The album was recorded in an old German barracks in Stuttgart, Germany while Ross was stationed over there with the United States Air Force. Although, this was the last official Asopriam album, the groups members would continue to work in various capacities with Bret for Moon in Leo and other musical adventures.   

Fear for Sale

Written and recorded in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain, during the height of the Second Iraq War, this album chronicles the feelings, frustrations, hopes and fears of a man living in the 21st Century sociopolitical spectrum. It is a painting of a heart ravaged by war, misrepresented by media powers and displaced by extreme political will. The album reflects on post-9/11 American thought process: fears of terrorism, a public concerned with discount prices at WalMart, Veterans Day parades, flag waving, obsession with television, celebrity and other modern American distractions. The original album was written and recorded with my acoustic guitar on a Tascam 4-Track recorder in Bahrain in 2004 and then subsequently rerecorded with a full band in Stuttgart, Germany. The later is what has been officially released and only four copies of the original acoustic album were produced. I hope to release the original format of the album at some point in the future.

Doors And Mornings

This was my “I’m leaving this band” breakout record and is a collection of my most intimate and personal songs. Between 2005 and 2007 when most of the material on this album was written, I was working in a band that was not quite working. These songs were forged during a time of great personal conflict and numerous relationship changes. I believe that is where the best songs come from.

*Drums by Lance Mathyssen on “Turning” and “Friends and Holes”

*Drums by Amador Solis on “All This Life We are Living”

Before There Was Music There Was Sound

During the autumn of 2012 and into the winter of 2012/2013 I was playing small acoustic clubs and open mics around the San Francisco Bay Area. I had the itch to produce a new record. Since I was living in the home turf of Craigslist (a great resource for connecting musicians!), the search began for drummers. Auditions began around January of 2013. There were a few that went well, some that were just atrocious. About this time, I stumbled upon a creative songwriting website that was about creating an album in time-limited capacity. The parameters were set. The challenge was made. I threw out all previous material and sketches and started from scratch. The drummers I engaged with were not quite keeping up with my writing nor really lighting up the tender to further progress my project. I decided to go it completely alone. Again. All of the material was written and produced between February 1st and 28th. For this effort, I brought in a bit of keyboard experimentation and a considerable amount of tracks are poetry readings. On a crisp California February afternoon, I spent several hours painting and reflecting on the songs. It’s my favorite album cover. This project felt liberating and I am quite happy with the end result.

Wonder East Wander West

The Time Between You and I (The Great Distraction)

2013 was a crazy year. A year full of incredible changes, challenges, and experiences. This album was written and recorded on or about the late evening or early morning of December 28th. It took a total of 5 hours to record. There are few overdubs and most everything is first take. It was mostly mixed in Cathey’s Valley, California shortly before I left the United States for Bangkok, Thailand. Final production and mixing was completed in Shanghai, China in the summer of 2014. This album is a spiritual document of 2013. It is my encore for the year.

Boxes of Clothes and Love Letters – Casual Collection of the Rare and Unreleased

(Summer 2019) I am currently working on several projects in Shanghai that will FINALLY see their potential realized in the next six months…. However; currently, I am excited to release some of my favorite songs that can finally see the light of day. These songs were recorded over 20 years. Some of them are just solo demos; a few of them are works recorded with other artists. There are timing mistakes. There are some bad or off notes. The songs are recorded raw at their time and not planned for any sort of intent of mass successful commercial release. That is the way I like my music. Unpolished and honest. Regardless, this collection of songs is a document and the songs are about the love of the music. All of them, however, were incredibly poignant in their time and place. This is not an all-encompassing representation of my work…… just some rare gems that I’m happy to share with the world. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have had going through hundreds of hours of tape and putting this compilation together.

Fear is sold out

Fear is Sold Out is a collection of the original demo material that was an album that I wrote in Manama, The Kingdom of Bahrain. I used a very static process for writing this album. One song per day. Every day was war and news and crazy stories. This was written as a reflection upon the day-to-day process of being involved at an intimate level with those processes of the human conflict. I hope it has a broader connection for humanity and understanding. The songs were eventually re-recorded for the full length album Fear for Sale that was produced in Stuttgart, Germany with a full band and overdubs and all the studio jazz the following year. These are the raw tapes from a single soul in the middle of the Persian Gulf. It was interesting to reflect on these songs 14 years later. I hope that you can somehow relate to them. Links for iTunes and Amazon are in the comments below.