I was born in Warsaw on March 27th, 1981. My family had
discovered (totally by accident), that I have a muscal talent when I was 7. I
began learning to play the Cello a year after that. Grabbed my first guitar when
I was tvelwe and after a year of learning Metallica's licks, I started to blay
basslines on it - right after I've heard Tom Hamilton's bass solo on Aerosmith's
"Gotta love it". That's how I got my first bass - my mom heard me play some
of my favorite basslines on our cheap nylon guitar, and asked If I'd like to
play an actual bass guitar. A year after that, on Christmas Eve, I got one. It
was a polish P-bass replica, cheapest one you could get (it was a miracle that
my parrents could afford one at that time anyway - dad had won som money
in a lottery, today's 450PLN (approx.150$), so he had spent 300PLN (100$)
on a bass for me. Cool to have a dad like that, huh? :). Three years from then,
having discovered the slap technique, at the age of 16, I was given a chance to
join a pop/rock kid-band, similar to Hanson or The Moffats. The band was put
together by a record company, the rest of the band was already there (the
drummer was 8 years old, played a DW custom maple kit with a 22" kick... you
could barely see him from behind the drumset, still he was one of the most
talented people I've ever met), so we shot a video to the single (recorded
by a session bassist), started promoting the band and waiting for the
company to give us a chance to record an album. We had a marvellous producer,
Zdzislaw Ziolo, who also happened to be the composer of 2/3rds of the material.
Great guitar player as well. He struggled to teach me how to play MUSIC on
bass, so I could record the album without anyone's help. He had succeeded, as
all the tracks of L.O.27(that was the band's name)'s first album "Moge Wszystko"
feature my basslines, besides the previously mentioned single. The album hit
number 2 in Poland, having sold 30 thousand copies of our CDs in December '97
alone (Poland's number one at that time, Budka Suflera, old school pop/rock
veterans had sold over 90 thousand copies of ther album also in December
alone - that was impossible to beat for a debut like us). So I had performed
lots of gigs with those guys (we have even met the Moffats on stage,
turned out they can sing pretty well, but playing instruments... let's just
say they were not exactly experts in that matter :), press tours, TV/radio
interviews, teen magazine photo sessions, videos, singles , blah blah. The
second album, out in 98, wasn't bad musically, but it didn't get any response.
After a couple of months touring I've decided to quit the band and focus on my
graduation exams and my classical upright bass final exam. Having that done,
I've spent a couple of months in one of the worst musical
semi-college schools on this planet, I'm not even going to mention its
name. Needless to say, I just stopped going there, never picked up my documents
from the office, I was so sick of that place. In that time I was involved in
many projects, mostly Funksters (acid-jazz group doing Incognito and Brand New
Heavies covers along with their own material) and the FUSE (formed by me, Micha..
"Fox" Król (keyboards) and Marcin "U1" Ulanowski (dr) as a house/funk/improv
instrumental trio). Funksters had eventually split, but the FUSE had its good
and bad times. I'll post the FUSE's story some other time, needless
to say that after a long break the band is back, the lineup had
completely changed (only me and the singer are left from the beginning),
I'll keep you guys posted about what's going on with it.
In 2001 I've
started studying at the Katowice's Music Academy (jazz/contemporary div.), it
took me 6 years to finish (it takes 5 years usually, but you know how it is...
exams interfering with your gigs, stuck on tour someplace else when they expect
you to attend your classes...), so from May 25th 2007 I am oficially a Master of
Arts, specialized in making noise using the bass giutar :)
In
2003 I've been invited to join a Polish popstar's band, wich I am a member of
until today. The guy's name is Andrzej "Piasek" Piaseczny. I really dig working
with him and the band, I think we have some good chemistry inside the
group.
In 2005 I went to Denmark for a Scholarship, to a school named Aero
Folkehojskole. I've spent 5 months there, gaining a lot as a human being.
Everyone told me I've changed for the better after getting back :) There were
some musical adventures there as well, but it wasnt as important as my inner
education. I seriously recommend that kind of stuff to everyone - diffrent
country, language, social enviroment - makes you seriously grow.
In 2004 I've
met Maceo Wyro, who was a part of the Innocent Sorcerers Collective. He had
introduced me to Envee, the only guy that was producing music in that collective
(consisting of four DJs). I was featured on their debut album, Envee &
Niewinni Czarodzieje, we did a lot of gigs together, including some crazy shows
with Tomasz Stanko (one of the world's leading jazz greats, incendiary trumpet
master). In 2006 IS had split, Maceo and me parted ways, but I still work with
Envee on his various projects - remixes, reworks, album featurings and many
more.
If you have any questions regarding my life story, the pplz that i
work/worked with or my music - feel free to contact me via Myspace. I'm 100%
open to new ideas, it's no problem for me to record bass to Your productions
while I'm sitting at home.
Cheers!
B
