Piano? Check, Stefan has taken care of that. On bass, Kevin. On drums, Steve. What else? Oh yeah, maybe guitar – and percussion as well. Which brings us to wesbound (he never liked his birth name all that much, hence a proper ‘stage name’ is due): He first got his toes wet at the age of 13 by starting to perform with local coverbands working the circuit in and around his birthplace. He then joined a semi-professional band that also wrote their own material and won a supra-regional “battle of the bands”. This ultimately led to his being booked into a band from Switzerland working professionally all year round playing corporate functions and acting as sidemen for celebrity artists. He stepped back from the professional circuit in 1989 but continued to play semi-professionally in and around Munich and eventually pursued and completed linguistics studies at LMU. During that time, he played one weekly gig in Augsburg as well as freelance jobs with bands in and around Munich. As of 2008, music became a more prominent part of his life again. The diverse opportunities becoming available with modern computer technology sparked his interest in recording songs he had written in High School, when the appropriate technology either didn’t exist yet or came at inaccessible budgets. Some milestones since then:
- 2009: collaboration with Brian O’Neal for the song and video (later) Dreams in Color
- performances with Mel Canady and Chessboard as well as with Freda Goodlett
- first release of an original song “I Count On U”
- continued web-based collaboration with Brian O’Neal as well as stand-in jobs with Chessboard.
What I instantly liked about Stefan’s idea? It may sound “crazy” on the one hand but it marries the charm of an “Arabian Nights” fairytale to the spirit and boldness of a pioneer who knows his way around the unprecedented opportunities of the new music business. On top of that, the entire approach that Stefan employs in creating and seeing this project through!