| Born of Italian and Lithuanian descent in Akron, Ohio, Patryk's family headed west to Prescott, Arizona before his second birthday. They let him drive most of the way. "That's where I would grow up in shame and miraculously go to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. I studied Creative Arts and Communications. That's all I could do. I sucked at about everything academic. I did study some classical guitar under a world-class player named Tom Sheeley. That would be my only formal training in music. I blew pretty bad as a student, for the most part." Patryk describes college as the time in his late teens/early twenties when he worked to cultivate the beginnings of a personal style and try to get laid. Both attempts proved futile. "I used to play solo gigs as a classical guitarist in coffee houses and restaurants for tips and a free meal or whatever. I usually ended up with the whatever...(?) I also played for some weddings, private parties, questionable organizations, and at the local country club. "They put me next to the buffet line. It was jello salad, beef stroganoff, buttered rolls, and me on classical guitar. I knew this was exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Then my band, the Wee Lads, would play parties for free beer and try to get some girl action. You know, it was that whole college scene." After barely graduating with a Bachelors degree, Patryk took an opportunity to move to his midwestern birthplace, Akron, Ohio. Akron is secretly the capital of West Virginia. Nice. "I made a trip to Ohio to visit my relatives and in particular, my grandmother. I just fell in love with the place. It was so different than Arizona. I permanantly moved a week later...what the hell was I thinking? Ohio is freaking freezing in the winter." Patryk would spend four years freezing his ass off in Ohio, about two years playing in a metal band called LOUD, based out of Canton. "LOUD got me back into metal. I saw that there was and always has been a big draw for good, heavy music. Even still, there was absolutely no money in it. We played all over Northeast Ohio, from Canton to Cleveland. For peanuts. We should have renamed the group The Completely Broke Metal Fools." In 2000, Patryk would return to the west coast and end up in Santa Cruz, California. "As long as I was destined to be broke, I figured I would at least live in a nice place. My plan worked beautifully. I was indeed still completely broke - living in a beautiful place." An aquiring of a Dean 7-string axe set his sound on a new path. Playing with the death metal band Skinfile, Patryk further explored his dark, penniless, and heavy musical expression. Metal still proved to be a not-for-profit endeavor. Just great. Patryk completed his first instrumental solo effort in 2004 entitled "Semyaza9". "That basic recording had the "stuff" I had been working toward releasing in hopes of getting out with my own music. I was done with vocal bands. It's what I call heavy instrumental guitar music. It's just what I truly love to do. The goal is to play from the heart, not just follow the pack, get a singer because the world says so, blah, blah... because, what happens is, you become instantly generic if you just do whatever everyone else does. I personally love instrumental guitar music. It's a phenomenon sound. It blows people away that we don't rely on a voice of some person at all to gloss over some typically boring chord progressions. I am on a mission to share this cool-ass sound." Patryk concludes his next step is to begin playing shows out of the bay area and continue his "PdR" campaign across the globe. "I gave a clinic based on my composition techniques to a great music camp for kids called DayJams, sponsored by National Guitar Workshop. The kids were great. I hope to do more of that kind of thing. Children don't create "rules" for music in their minds. They are completely open-minded. Adults can suck at that." The PdR band solidified in the fall of 2006, with Robert Cooper of San Jose, CA at the drum kit. Robert's ancestry is Portuguese. His favorite drummer is Cozy Powell, but he owns one of the largest collections of rock and metal albums known to mankind. He plays a double-kick style with his own personal flair, not just mindlessly blasting away like many players today. His style encompasses a straight-forward yet unique approach with the basic 5-piece set. He uses a few other things such as a cowbell for a change in the typical "metal sound". Fans are convinced he has a secret pact with Christopher Walken and Blue Oyster Cult. Robert met Patryk in the fall of 2005 and began rehearsing the Semyaza9 material the following spring of 2006. Robert never took any drum lessons, claiming MTV was how he figured out the basics of drumming, just watching and listening to the pros. There is a sound he creates with his technique that many drummers simply cannot produce, creating a powerhouse mechanism of percussion around Patryk's guitar tone, thoroughly kicking your ass to the last beat. The newest member of PdR is Jeffery Ekhardt of Mountainview, CA. Born and raised in the area, Jeff commits a slender-fingered assault to his six-string Ibanez seldomly matched in prowess. Jeff hasn't seen the sun very much between his hours on the bass and the computer. A technically savvy individual, Jeff provides an exacting, almost digital yet purely organic feel to the band with his musical gift. Melodies and sheer passion can pour out of his bass at any given moment while holding the band together like really strong adhesive that withstands high temperatures- as well as extreme lows, of course. Back to Main |
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