Joe Haze

Joe Haze is a guitarist on the rise with a monsters fascination for the craft.

Born in the hell-fire of San Jose, California, Haze grew up as an only child, quietly developing a morbid fascination for blood and gore, behind the well tempered guise of dry humour. His first instrument was a purple guitar, a present from his Uncle. Although this was never played, Haze's fascination with the stringed beast grew as he looked upon it's gruesome beauty.

As adolescence took hold, Haze brought his own guitar from the unglamorous premises of a pawn shop; “I brought my first guitar at a pawn shop. I was horrible, all I could do was strum it and make awful noise. I didn't even have an amp”. Over the next four years, as Haze grew, so did his playing. Helped by tuition and a tunnel vision desire to play, Haze spent many hours alone in the darkness, his friend a six stringed screamer. The craft became an obsession as he practised for eight hours a day and feed from his friends. “All my close friends played guitar when I was a kid, we would drill each other on scales for hours until our fingers were all most bleeding.”

This obsession paid off as he quickly progressed through intermediate stages showing a rare untapped proficiency. At the age of 16 he joined his first band, and whilst the youngest and having only three years experience Haze showed that his quest for aural aptitude had paid off as he stood his ground amongst the older, experienced musicians. At the age of 19, Joe Haze's other interests began to surface as he began to frequent the dark, beautiful San Francisco Fetish Scene. Joined by his amour at that time, Haze caught the attention of photographer Eric Kroll, and so began a seeding, an intertwining within Haze that not only shaped his person and his dark desires, but his music.

In 1994, with the release of Nine Inch Nails 'Downward Spiral' album, the catalyst was fired for Joe Haze's interest and intrigue with audio engineering. Laying down his beloved guitar Haze began to immerse himself in the art of programming and playing synth. This lead him to spend time working as a producer and engineer, branching out in different directions as he sought new sounds, new genres and vastly different, diverse and sometimes polarising artists.

His time as a sound engineer saw him working with famed producer Sylvia Massy [Tool, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, System Of A Down and Prince]. However Joe Haze did not limit himself to behind the studio but kept working on the music, developing his work on the keyboards and picking up his first and true love, the guitar. His resume is impressive having worked for ABC Networks, and having clients on the radio and MTV.

Haze is an artist with a truly interesting musical career that has seen him play guitar and keyboard with virtually every band he has crossed paths with. His most recent band was Seven, but the call to develop his own style and work on his own projects has been too strong to ignore and now Haze has put aside his schedule as a hired gun, to work once again on the twisted nightmare and sensual and dark pleasures ofhis solo project. He delves back into the twisted nightmare and sensual and dark pleasures to work on his debut solo album. “I finally decided to do my own thing, put my own album out”.

Joe Haze invites you to join him on this journey, to take the trip into Hell, and follow this new monster, one who's work you will long to always know. 'This is not just a "guitar solo" album, but a dismal vestige to the under world.'

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