My name is Dan Saunders; I'm a young musical composer and performer. I am skilled in playing the piano as well as the electric guitar. My purpose seems to revolve around music... it's something I find fulfilling and have a genuine passion for.
In terms of proof of ability on paper, I achieved GCSE Level music with an A* grade in 2007 and passed my Grade V Piano exam in 2008. I'm currently working towards my Grade VI Piano exam in September / October 2009. I just did my Grade V Theory Exam and am waiting for the results. I have no qualifications in guitar. What I can say is that I've been playing guitar, and piano, for about 5 years now, and I've been in bands / projects throughout this time period.
Elaborating on that, My first real band with any connotations of commitment attached to it was (and is) Phyrexia (www.myspace.com/phyrexianmetal). The group is a semi-pro sort of epic metal project which I formed with some (ex-)friends in January 2007. It's been through various forms and stages, but is finally up and running healthily - we've been together as a full lineup for almost a year, have recorded an EP (which is almost completed) and are now gigging pretty regularly. The music is largely influenced by grandiose elaborate compositions from bands like Emperor, Old Man's Child, Naglfar, Opeth, Enslaved, Dissection, Bal-Sagoth, Sigh... although inspiration is drawn from many things, giving us next to no boundaries, and the music is moving on past my own personal main black and avant-garde metal influences. This band is no longer about me or my music - Phyrexia is the people in it, and they are all some of my best and closest friends. I'm incredibly proud of how far Phyrexia has come and eagerly anticipate where it will go. So should you.
While Phyrexia was developing in it's earlier stages without a stable lineup, Tempest (www.myspace.com/thetempest0) was born. Initially I joined a band under the name of "Fight!!". One member left and the project was put on hold. Finding it ridiculous that an entire band could be stopped because of a single member (a vocalist on top of that) I found a new vocalist in Nine and gathered the musicians to form a band anew. All three members who had previously been of "Fight!!" left, one by one. By some strange twists of fate, between Nine and myself we found members to form a band from scratch, which became Tempest.
No longer a metalcore outfit, Tempest became an odd genre confused metal band - it was fun and is regarded as an incredibly necessary step in the musical lives of everybody involved. However, I quickly grew dissatisfied with the way we were working and the material we were putting out and left the band in January 2008. Pawel, the other guitarist, also left, and it is my understanding that the band is no longer functioning. We played one gig on 23rd December, 2008 - Bulletfest. Headlined by Inner Rage (one of my experimental death metal heroes), and being on the bill with very accomplished bands such as Discord and Machine, Tempest ended with a great experience and a lot of fun. The whole thing opened my eyes up and humbled me as a musician. That is the story of Tempest, in a nutshell, from my perspective.
Pretty much around the beginning of 2009 two more bands were formed, the first of which is Nihilistic Obliterator (www.myspace.com/nihilisticobliterater). This is essentially a metal project loosely based around a Doom / Death concept - the idea is lots of low end, sludgy, heavy and headbangable riffs churned out one after another. Nothing too flash, nothing too elaborate, nothing too technical - really dirty solid metal done well. I formed this project with Mark James Hunter (ex-Tiberium bassist, Dead Mentality) and we intend to be making tracks ready for this summer. Essentially all we need is a drummer to start doing shows after we write some material.
The other aforementioned band is EmpeROAR. This is an Emperor tribute / cover band put together by myself and my two best friends; Rhys (Phyrexia, Empyreal Destroyer, ex-Tempest, ex-Man of Kin) and Vicki (Phyrexia, Murray the Evil Skull). It was a pretty lolz idea which sooner than later became a reality - now with a full line up there isn't really any reason why we shouldn't be ready to pay tribute to one of my favorite band of all time. We're the only Emperor cover band to my knowledge, and being based in London I'm intrigued to what kind of reaction we will get. A lot of work is going into this as we need to pull everything off pretty perfectly in order to do it justice.
As of May 2009 I have joined Empyreal Destroyer - temporarily as a live player, but if all goes well I may well be a permanent addition to the band. I am playing second guitar, which up 'til now has been rhythm based, although there's some ideas for second lead guitar and harmony coming through, and I'm expected to be a creative force within the band. I feel certain that some pretty epic material and shows will emerge from this band and eagerly anticipate the future.
Some final notes which could be of interest, I am a totally self taught guitarist, while I have had and continue to have regular lessons in piano. I can read both tab and sheet music and am able to arrange music competently. I have composed both commercial and less than commercial forms of music for different objectives. I have my own guitar setup which has cost me over £1000 over the years (albeit, some of the old equipment has either broken or been sold on). I have access to an upright piano regularly. I have manuscript paper as well as open source software to write music in. I've used music technique books previously and intend to once again in order to improve my playing skill and ability. And... that's all I can really think of at the moment.
As an artist, I aim to write music which will satisfy myself and hopefully impress a few others along the way. I love clever compositions, weather they be elaborate or simplistic. On the grand scale of things I have a few goals, including touring in a fully-pro Metal band (probably of my own making), studying music in higher education in order to become as competent and good a musician as I can be, and to one day settle down and write compositions for Video Games.
That is all I have to say right now. Thank you for taking the time to read my bio.
- last updated, 26/06/09
