Pray For More is the brainchild of Austrian born and raised DJ, Promoter and Producer Roland Bartha AKA DJ Velasquez. He started playing out mixed club music in the mid eighties with the fellow age of 16 around his hometown and various clubs in Vienna, quickly becoming on of the biggest names in the very buzzing Austrian club scene. During the same time and after a few visits to the magic island, that is Ibiza, he was offered a residency at the now long time closed club Angel’s in Ibiza Town in 1986 where he quickly established himself as the number one DJ of the club and by that time also fell in love with this new and different sound evolving out of the US, called House Music. Words spread over the island, and the following year one of the biggest and most famous clubs on the island, Es Paradis Terrenal in San Antonio, offered him the unique chance to become their new main resident DJ which he was for 5 continuing years until 1993. It was also the time when he met this crazy English guy called Charlie Chester, who, back in the days, ran the now legendary Flying Party’s in and around London and also the infamous Flying Records Store in Kensington High Street. Together they put on two Flying Party’s at Es Paradis Terrenal in 1988 including DJ’s like Phil Perry, Mark Wilkinson, Rocky, Diesel, Clive Henry, Ashley Beedle and many others, who became a big success and led to a mere of party’s at all the clubs over the next years. Roland was invited to play at various Flying Party’s in and around London and a lot of other nights all over the UK in the winter of 1988 and due to the big success also the years after, quickly becoming a welcome guest DJ at many of the UK’s top nightclubs. In 1990 he moved to London to live there during the winter and found himself living together with two long time friends, one who was working as an A&R Manager for Island Records and who was about to start his own label, Subrosa Records, the other who was Sascha’s Manager. Over the next years Roland became more and more involved in the music industry and started to help out his friends with their work, which also led to his first productions and remix work. He remixed the first ever release on Positiva Records called Exoterix “Void†and the first ever release of Nootropic on Hi-Life Records called “Noo Reality†that featured former Imagination lead - singer Leee John on the vocals. Own productions, mostly of them sample tracks or instrumental tracks followed on various labels and under various monikers like Velasquez, The Primates, Glass House, World Wide Tribe and Groove Masters followed before he decided to start a new vocal and artist based project called Pray For More. The main idea behind Pray For More was to break new or less known artists and involving talents from all over, including singers, live musicians and song writers that he met over the years. By that time Roland was already back in his native country of Austria where he started to promote his own nights and quickly became one of Austria’s main House – DJ’s and biggest promoters. This was a solid base for his new project and he started to work on new tracks with Viennese studio wizard Georg O. Luksch, who is also the man responsible for all the keyboard sounds, programming and mixing on most of the Club 69 / Peter Rauhofer productions and remixes, who won a Grammy for his remixes and was nominated several times. Their first track called “Brand New Day†was a collaboration between them and former Imagination lead – singer Leee John who Roland still knew from his time in the UK. Lee wrote the lyrics , did the vocal arrangements and sang backing vocals on this track and also brought in the singer, Eddie. By that time she was signed to Positiva records and therefore it took some time before the track finally came out. It was released 1996 in Italy via UMD / Dig It and made it into the charts and also was released in the UK on Subrosa Records. As things for Club 69 where going well and due to time problems caused by that, Roland split from his partner Georg and started to work on new material by himself. His new project was a cover version of an all time classic disco track, entitled “This Time Babyâ€. He involved some great live musicians like Pete Z on Keyboards and Live Piano and Jeff Walker on Live Bass and Guitar to give the backing track the original disco feeling and brought in New York House Diva Annette Taylor to sing the track. Annette had a huge success by that time as a lead singer for the Club 69 anthem “Sugar Pie Guy†and later also was signed to Fluential Records. The track was signed to Italy again and to Defender Records in the UK. Francois K and Matthias Heilbronn remixed the track for Defender and it sold around 11.000 pieces worldwide, becoming a big success. In 1999 Roland teamed up with Annette Taylor again and did two more songs called “Everybody Reachout†and “You Love Me Rightâ€, both written by New York based Singer and Songwriter Lee Genesis, who Roland met during some Live Performances for “This Time Baby†a few years before. After these two tracks and due to the growing work as a DJ and Club Promoter, Roland took a break from producing to work on some new and very prestigious projects in the Viennese Club - Scene including Nights called “Delicious†and “Twistedâ€. The later one was concentrating on the soulful side of House and brought over DJ’s like Paul Farris, Copyright, Audiowhores, Warren Clarke, ATFC, Seamus Haji, Brian Tappert, Eddie Amador, Stonebridge and many more Top – DJ’s who helped to establish this new night and soulful House Music in Vienna and Austria. In 2003 he felt that time is right to start working on new music and so Roland went to New York to do some follow – up material for his Pray For More project. He teamed up with Lee Genesis again to write two new tracks and they brought in New York based singer Latasha Jordan to deliver the vocals. The first track is called “Breaking Away†and is based around an instrumental sample taken from the Disco Classic “Fly Robin Fly†by The Silver Convention. It’s a very pumpin’ and driving Slice of Vocal Disco House where Latasha delivers a fine Vocal performance. The second one is called “Ready For Love†and comes in a complete different way. It’s much darker and more in a typical Jazz-N-Groove sort of Style, though not completely finished yet. It features Latasha and Lee Genesis on Vocals. “Breaking Away†got signed to Paul Farris’ Con Brio Label in the UK and became a big Club Success all over Europe, staying in the Boxes of many Top Jocks around the World. Remixes from ATFC and 7th District completed the Package and the track also found it’s way to various compilations around the Globe. The same year, “Ready For Love†was re-released on the infamous Plastic Fantastic Sublabel Fantastic House and entered the DJ Mags Buzz Chart into the Top Ten and stayed there for a few weeks. Due to the success of those two tracks, international Dj – Bookings all over Europe followed and Roland started to Dj as Pray For More from this Point, involving Live Musicians and Live Instruments into his set. Nowadays he’s doing some sort of a Live Dj Remix Set, using 3 CDJs, a Laptop and a Keyboard plus his infamous musicians to create something complete new. More tracks have been finished in the meantime too, featuring some of the finest vocalists available. Coming out soon on various international labels: “Shame†featuring Latasha Jordan on vocals, another Disco Monster in the making, “Missing†featuring Big John, an amazing American Vocalist, living in Vienna and “Satisfaction†featuring New York Vocal legend Lee Genesis. Watch Out! The Madness Is Coming!
