RARES

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Rares Totu was born September 27,1965 in the city of Cluj-Napoca in the heart of Transylvania, Romania .At age 7 he began taking piano lessons ,but his life changed when the Martin Scorsese movie “The Last Waltz”(featuring Eric Clapton ,amongst others) came into his native town’s movie theaters .He decided to be a guitar player, and never looked back since. He put together his first band in elementary school, together with Jimi Lako , today a respected blues recording artist. In a couple of years Rares Totu became a sought after guitarist, filling spots in the biggest bands of Romania, and recording his first LP, backing one of the most important singers of the time, at the age of 17. After graduating he went on to study foreign languages at the University of Bucharest. While still playing with big names in the Musical Industry of the time,(bands Semnal ,Progresiv TM , Metrock),in 1987 he formed his first “real” band ,the Trans Express, a band that had success from the first day ,as they opened tours for many of the known Rock bands ,and won ALL the band contests from year 1987,.all over the country. Rares Totu won ALL the guitar player prizes at these contests, which led him to the title of “Best Guitarist Overall” for 1987,devansating more famous or seasoned players . Trans Express were not allowed to participate to contests anymore, so they started to tour the country, and everywhere they returned, the crowd was 2-3 times bigger. As their bass player went on to do his compulsory military service, the band took a break in the second part of 1988,helping two of their friends and icons to put back together the legendary band Compact ,a band that sold more than 2 million records. Rares Totu played keyboards for this band, but Trans Express recorded a demo of his song “The Heat of the Night” that was sent to Metal Hammer and was featured in the august 1989 issue ,the writer naming it “The best band and song that emerged from behind the Iron Curtain”. After the Romanian Revolution in December ‘89, he quickly reformed Trans Express, leading the band to tremendous success, culminating with headlining the Bucharest Sports Arena, with 10 000 people attending .In 1990 they went to play a couple of shows in Hungary, and as the response was great ,they all moved to Budapest, only returning to Romania for important festivals, like Rock’91 or to open for Uriah Heep and Ian Gillan. 1992 brought his second “Guitar Player of the Year” award, this time in his adoptive country, Hungary. He started working in different Hungarian studios, first as a guitar player and engineer ,later as a producer and Musical Director, winning “Best Rock Sound for a new coming band” award for his production on Seneca’s “Brutal” CD. In 1993 he became involved with Marshall Amplification ,playing on the cassette “The Sound of Marshall”, issued by the Austrian Distributor, ATEC. From 1993 to 1996 he co-owned a musical instruments shop in Budapest, Hungary, specialized in guitars. They handled the Hungarian distribution for ESP guitars and organized several clinics ,an uncommon thing for that time, they even had George Lynch for a clinic. After an accident that killed Romanian Rock Legend Bela Raduly, who at that time was playing drums with Trans Expres, Rares Totu decided it’s time to move back to his native country, Romania, but the move was done only a couple of years later, in the meantime Trans Express completing their second LP and putting together a ‘Best Of” album. In 2003 he formed his actual band, Midnight Express, a supergroup that put together Romania’s best drummer, Adrian Tetrade, stellar keyboards and Hammond player Raul Kusak and John Patittuci award winner Sebestyen Joo on bass. Playing a mixture of Blues ,Rock, and Jazz, this band is an extraordinary example of interplay and improvisation. They played and headlined a lot of the blues festivals in the country, they headlined the “Flowers for Tojo” festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, and had countless apparitions on the National Television. Midnight Express appears on the “Romanian Tribute to Hendrix” CD with a talk-box driven version of “All Along the Watchtower”, and the same song ( but in a 15 minutes long version) is featured on the Sighisoara Blues Fest 2004 CD. Midnight Express recorded a live material that will come out this fall ,and will be entitled “Midnight Radio”. Trans Express will have a 20 years reunion this winter. For the last couple of years, Rares Totu was doing demonstrations and clinics for Marshall on behalf of M&C Musical Instruments ,the Romanian distributor. An complete musician, with a distinctive and recognizable tone, he is currently working on his first solo record ,that will feature duets with a couple of well known singers from Romania, and will be “on the smoother side”, as the artist himself said.