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| Bio of the Artist |
Cheaper Than Therapy is the banner under which my song writing aspirations fly. In other words a solo project, which may sound pretentious I know, but lacking a band with any full-time members and tired of a rotating door through which many a drummer and lead guitarist has passed, I decided the only way to do this right was do it myself. I had a lot of songs sitting on the shelf, some finished, some not and many ideas for new tunes. I gave myself a year in which I would not spend a moment trying to assemble a band which also meant no jamming, no watching other bands in clubs and less time watching hockey-gotta have some distractions! So at the turn of the new millenium I poured myself into the task I'd set for myself.
Let me backtrack for a moment here and tell you a bit about myself. My name is Ivan, I'm a 47 year old songwriter and musician living in Ajax Ontario, Canada, Ajax is a bedroom community (which seems to want to become the new Scarborough in all its sprawling glory) about 20 miles east of downtown Toronto. I was born and raised about 4 miles west of here in Pickering Ontario, which has a mall but otherwise is much like its neighbour Ajax. I've spent the last thirty years in various bands you probably haven't heard of, except maybe Moving Targetz whose claim to fame was opening for such bands as Trooper and the Killer Dwarfs and coming in the top 20 in a Hard Rock Cafe battle of the bands back in 1990. To make what could become a very long story a little shorter I decided to cut back on most of the compromises I've ever made to achieve mainstream success and just write what I know and love, mostly aggressive hard rock inspired by many artists near and dear to me like Alice Cooper (the original band 1969-74), late sixties and early seventies Rolling Stones, Iggy and the Stooges, the amazing and underated Headstones and just about any garage, punk, hard rock, late fifties rock n roll even the odd heavy metal band that I've found to be inspiring and original. I try to stay away from being a carbon-copy of any one of these influences and just let whatever I've loved about what they do along with my own ideas of what a good rock song should be to flow into whatever I write.
In the late summer of 2002 I went into the studio to begin recording what has become my 1st solo album 'Terminal Adolescence', released on my good friend, bassist Jaimie Vernon's Bullseye Records label (bullseyecanada.com) in November of 2003. I'm currently working on a 2nd album (currently titled 'Forbidden') which should with any luck be released late this year, ten songs are complete and the rest are in various demo stages. In 2004 Jaimie hooked me up with B-Movie horror filmaker SV Bell(Sylvan, svbell.com) who was searching for music for his about to be released 1st full length film 'The Night They Returned'. Sylvan picked "SIX!!!" of my tunes for the film, TNTR made its debut at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal in the summer of that year. Consequentially, I asked Sylvan if I could write the theme song for his next film 'Purple Glow' and he said sure! I took a half finished tune I was working on (the Abyss) that seemed to fit the film thematically, so I got it finished and sent it off to Sylvan who loved it and said it was a go! Purple glow was released last summer, again at the Fantasia Fest in Montreal. Last year, I asked Sylvan once again if I could write the theme song for his next film "She Demons Of The Black Sun" (great title for a horror movie!) and again he said, "yes!" (there seems to be a pattern imerging, hehehe...). This time he needed something more heavy-metal sounding, so I told him I'd see what I could come up with and see what he thought of the result. A couple of months later, I sent him a copy of the song 'Isabelle' and again he was very pleased with the results. In February of last year I got an e-mail from Sylvan telling me he was short one actor for one of the 5 main characters in the film and asked if I'd like to be in the film, I jumped at the chance to be a part of it, even if it meant playing a bumbling loser named Ronald, who meets his end in a most unpeasant manner! Who cares? I had a great time and look forward to watching myself trying to act!
The band is currently looking to get our feet wet with some southern Ontario gigs (weekends preferably). Thanks to Morganna for kicking my ass to get this bio done and putting me in touch with some great people in St Catherines like Bill at Vinyl Frontier and Leslie down at Out Of the Past. Hope to do a show out that way in the near future!
Ivan... |
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