Q: Hey, can you tell us a bit about where you come from, and what made you want to start a career in music?
A: Dick: typical rock and roll story for me, kicked out of every school in the county by the 8th grade, father was ex-Law Enforcment. Decided to move to NC to start my first band at 17 (unsuccessful of course.) But over the course of the years music has been a constant passion.
Ash: Born in Tallahassee still live in Tallahassee with my own business, Rough Cut Productions ( www.RoughCutProductions.com ). I was inspired to learn guitar after returning from my first out of town rock show which was Metalica. It was so inspiring and I wanted to be a part of helping inspire others to pursue their art. Along the way, started making music videos for bands to pay the bills and my business grew to what it is now. Hence, the Cue The Muses, rock album, sci-fi, comedy, scripted show for a new genre we are trying to invent called, a “Musie Series”.
Q: Did you have any formal training, or are you self-taught?
A: Dick: self taught, starting with Cliff Burton Metallica basslines and then into Tool then to Killswitch engage where my heart really found it’s pitch with aggressive rock riffs.
Ash: I’ve had about 3 months of lessons mostly focused on music theory. Outside of that, self taught. My addiction was coming up with songs. I think I’ve only learned about 10-15 covers in 20+ years of playing.
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences, and why the name ‘Cue The Muses’?
A: Dick: my single strongest musical influence has been Adam D from Killswitch engage, but Tool and Adam Jones is a Huge one. So many influences with local talent peers, the 2021 welcome to Rockville line up here in Florida features 3 bands from the region here that are personal friends of ours and two of them are vocalists featured in Cue The Muses, Nadira (our first single “My soul is an element.)
And Curt Rogers (on an as of yet unreleased single.)
I’ll let ash answer the name question as that was his original concept!
Ash: Tool and The Red Hot Chili Peppers played the largest roles in my teenage years through my early 20’s where I think music has its biggest effect on people. I could list off many other bands but hands down, those 2 bands helped me connect with myself and the magic of the world in a fantastical way. The name “Cue The Muses” was arrived at once after we finished the outline of what our story was for the show. The story concept is based on Ash & Dick traveling into peoples minds to musically collaborate with their inner-Muses and bring back art to combat the evil A.I. Harmonia who has brainwashed the world with its algorithmically generated music. The term “Cue The MusIC” might be heard behind the curtain of a broadway show. I did stagehand work for large concerts and broadways for over 15 years. So it is also a play on words as well.
Q: You have just released your new single, ‘My Soul Is An Element’. Is there a story behind it?
A: Dick: so this song was written in collaboration with featured vocalist “Nadira Najm-Carey” we gave her full freedom of lyrical concept and her story is a beautiful picture painted on the muses perception of creativity being harder and harder to hold on to. Fun Fact: the song actually started it’s like about 7 years prior as a demo version written with Curt Rogers (Singer for Defy the Tyrant) and had a working title of 2 bears. Lyrically he continued that concept of lyric in a few defy the tyrant songs. But musically they share many of the same sections but the added arrangements working with Ash has extended and added a texture palate with a much more diverse layering.
This is one of my favorite songs!
Ash: Within each episode of our show “Cue The Muses” a new song from our album is released in the form of a music video. Each song features a different singer from a different band throughout the Southeast U.S.The music video also plays a direct part in the story of the show. Nadira, and all singers for that matter, were given freedom to come up with their own lyrics but we made sure they understood the story of the show we were filming so there could be context between the plot and the lyrics. The guiding light we requested was to make the lyrics feel human, as we are fighting against music that was written by an A.I..
Q: Can we expect a new EP or even an album from you in the near future?
A: Dick: so as of this interview we have actually released episode 2 of a Cue the Muses, and in turn our second Single “Afrayed” featuring a Duet of David Rowe and Cody Williford (mine and Ashes respected band vocalists!)
CTM will be a 4 part series featuring an all original song deput with each episode and climaxing with a finale that features 2 songs for a full 5 song EP!
Each song has an average running time of around 8 minutes so these are big experimental Rock and Roll adventures!
Ash: The full 5 song Album/EP has all been recorded by Brett Hestla, frontman for the billboard band “Dark New Day” who hit their stride back in the early 2000s. He also sings on the final song. With each song going past 8 minutes in length, while it is only 5 songs, it is the running length of a full album. We are releasing the songs within each 30min scripted episode. Each episode is filled with campy musician geared humor and ends with the most epic music video production we could possibly muster. As someone who makes professional video branding content for international companies like Trans Am Worldwide, I can tell you the production level of these music videos surpasses anything I have done in my professional career. I don’t think another independent/unsigned band on the planet has a production level like this and we really hope the idea is original enough to spark this new “Musie” genre as another medium for artist to consider in presenting their art to the world.
Q: What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
A: Dick: definitely a concept of originality and a diverse soundscape that will resonate with a lot of different tastes.
I love everyone involved in this project.
With its inception being music written exclusively by ash and myself on guitars then layering the mountain of knowledge and skill from Timbo (Drums) and Brett Hestla: (recording engineer/producer/bassist.)
It’s all just been an amazing humbling experience.
Ash: I think with how progressive the songs are across 8-10 minute compositions, the number one type of fan will be musicians and music lovers of rock. The diversity of different singers across the album really offers something for every style of rock lover.
Q: Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more?
A: Dick: Absolutely. This project has been the single most rewarding and fulfilling experience I have ever been a part of.
A: Ash: I actually made a Vlog episode on my personal channel just about how this was the coolest thing I have ever been a part of making. But not just the music, it has also been the opportunity to create a MUSE Universe of our own story concept, script write, direct, act, film, edit and put out the culmination of pretty much every aspect of art I have worked on my whole life, bottled up into this singular presentation of a rock album, sci-fi, web-series. Here is that VLOG episode if you are interested in an overview of what Cue The Muses is and how meaningful it has been to make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MZLDtNJF7Q&t
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: Dick: I am very fluid with my songwriting. I enjoy the challenge of improvising and pushing the envelope.
I’m a traditionalist also. And the recording process with Brett is very one on one with someone who I think is an incredible songwriter and guitar player, it’s also helps that Ash is an extremely creative and unique player and we push each other to new avenues.
For me songwriting is like excavating a fossil from the earth, it’s already there I feel and it’s carving away the debris and clutter to find the riffs and the structure.
Ash: Goosebumps. I literally just keep exploring riffs and ideas until something physically gives me goosebumps. I then hone in on that, see where it takes me until I discover my body physically reacts and gives me goosebumps again. That is my process until I feel a general song is outlined. Then I take that outline, and start detailing it. Teaming up with Dick has elevated the experience and end song results to new heights. This is the best music I have ever been a part of making for sure. The guy knows how to give me goosebumps too. This project specifically has been a writing process like none I have ever experienced. Dick and spent a solid year writing the guitar parts with no other accompaniment. We recorded scratch tracks of all 5 songs, found the absolute best drummer we could… enter Tim Diduro, and went out to Brett Hestla’s recording studio in Tennessee. We laid it down out there, Brett wrote bass on it afterwards. Then we submitted our instrumental songs to various singers, picked the absolute best from those submissions, got those hand picked rock vocalists out to Tennessee for our second recording stint, and recorded their vocals on top of the instrumentals. Then scheduled and filmed music videos for each song, along with all the scripted sci-fi comedy scenes over the course of another year. Then, this 3rd year has been focused on me editing all the hard work together into these episodes. We just released Episode 2 last week. “My Soul Is An Element” was the single from Episode 1.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: Dick: Losing my Father. Musically. Nothing has been terribly difficult, I’ve seen some musicians go down some bad paths and that’s always hard to watch.
But fortunately the team we have surrounded ourselves with is very strong and proactive!
Ash: I try to take the most difficult things that happen in life and accept that they are part of learning and understanding life. Losing my Dad would also be on the top of those tough experiences. But, I learned a lot from it and accept that we will all have to go at some point. I know 100% that my pursuit of creating art even while running a tremendously busy business and holding down the fort for family responsibilities, would continue to make him proud.
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: Dick: aside from Cue the Muses, I’d say it has been teaching My son Chiron how to play the guitar and watching him become an amazing musician in his own right.!
Ash: My wife and two children will always be the top of that list. But, I find fulfillment with my art through my client work in addition to my personal art. Getting millions of plays on a 15 minute plus short film that we pretend is just a “commercial” for my clients, is pretty dang cool. I love knowing that many people are being entertained by my work. But without doubt, CUE THE MUSES is the most artistically fulfilling thing I have ever done. I hope it is just the beginning. With the editing of each episode clocking in around 500 hours, this is quite the undertaking. That doesn’t even account for the song writing, recording, and filming. We really hope we can get some fan support built up to continue to make more past this initial album/season. So we GREATLY appreciate your help in getting the word out about what we think is a really original and fun new music media genre.
Just in case you don’t have it, here is the music video single that we are tyring to push, and here is the full episode it is featured in if interested to give the full episode a go.
Cue The Muses “My Soul Is An Element”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAv-wdqOja8
Cue The Muses | Episode 1 ”Mind Travel”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56-lccRka8s&t
Cue The Muses | Episode 2 (OFFICIAL TRAILER)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a00fL8EmlKE
