Ever since I can remember, I always loved music. Growing up, there was always music in the house. From classical to jazz, Hungarian folk music to progressive rock, something was always playing. To this day, I really can't stand a quiet room. I need to have music around me. By the time I started high school, I was obsessed with the blues based rock bands of the 60's and 70's. I could not get enough of bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and probably most of all... Led Zeppelin! Once I learned that much of these bands' inspiration came from older blues songs, I began traveling backwards in time to find the source. The trail led me to John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and other, even more primitive roots music.
It was around this time that I started heckling my parents for a guitar... without any success. It took a few years of squandering my time and money on video games to realize that if I wanted a guitar, I was going to have to get serious about buying one myself. I began saving every dollar I came across and when I was sixteen, my dream came true. I was able to buy my first guitar (with my parents' help of course). Thus began my journey.
It was a very rocky start. I could not afford lessons and spent many frustrating hours trying to learn from books. I didn't make any substantial progress until I was in college. It was there that I met my roommate and friend Ethan Phelps. I learned a lot from Ethan and started my first band with him and fellow friends and students "Muffler" Michael Kostiuk and Doug Seitz. We formed Some Band in the fall of 1999 and continued writing and recording songs until our breakup in the fall of 2002. Our material ranges from heavy riff based guitar rock to punk rock to funky jamming. While at Uconn, I also played guitar in Red Hot Mammas, from 2001 to 2002. The Mammas tunes are a blues based jam rock sound that allowed for a lot of soloing all around and helped me with my improvisational skills.
While I was unemployed all summer during 2003, I spent a lot of time practicing, learning, jamming and playing open mic nights with my friend JD. I was becoming more and more serious about music and decided to move to Boston. It took me a while, but I eventually formed Sentient End with Jill Lancraft in 2004. We wrote 12 songs together and recorded an EP of four songs. The band broke up in September of 2006.
My goal is to keep practicing, work on new material and find fun people to play music with. I've been listening to a lot of folk and roots based music lately. I've also been working on some jazz as well. Only time will tell where I'll end up musically speaking... I just hope that I'll be able to absorb as many different types of music as possible and shape my own unique style and approach.
I've also started recording other bands recently. Hopefully these are the first steps towards fulfilling my dreams of having my own record label and studio.
Pal 06.26.07
© Pal Pocsi 2004