AV:  I think that the last time we spoke was way back in 2007 when you were releasing Dimensions. We’ll get to some questions about Eternity II in a bit, but tell me what’s been happening with you musically for the last 17 years?

JL:  Well...since my last interview with Ambient Visions which was in July of 2007 I've been very busy with numerous projects that are guitar band-based as well as a number of Ambient releases...and also moving half-way across the country to New Mexico and taking some time to get settled in our new Southwest surroundings.  

For those out there that don't know...I've been a Rock and Acoustic guitarist for over 40 years. I've been alternating between doing Rock, Acoustic and Ambient music for decades. 

After I released my first solo Ambient album Dimensions in November of 2006, I started an Acoustic Duo in the Fall of 2007 called "Life As We Know It" and had two commercial releases with that project between 2010 and 2015.  

Click here for the complete interview with John Lyell

Nicole Grabke interviews Deuter

NG: Can you talk about your connection to music? How did you connect as a child? What fascinates you about music?

Deuter: Basically everything. The sound. A sound. Any sound, like a bird singing, water running, waves on the ocean. And then sounds which are created by an instrument, which are built to create a harmonious sound hopefully, something which is pleasing and helping us to go through our lives with some pleasure. It's just a sound. I can just play around with sounds.

NG: And do you remember when you were young, how you connected to music? Why music and not art or painting? I know you grew up in a family that played a lot of music, but as far as I know, you perceived music differently than they did.

Deuter: Well, I don't know about that. I mean, I also like painting and I love paintings. I was just never so intrigued in actually painting something as I was with creating music or creating sounds. With sound you create with a piece of wood or with some metal things or spoon on the table or whatever.

Click here for the complete interview with Deuter

AV:  Tell me about what music has meant to you in your life and how it morphed from something you listened to into something that you actively worked with as a musician.

SS:  Music has been a constant in my life. It was pretty clear to my parents from a very young age that I was going to be musical. While I was in the womb, my parents would be somewhere and music would come on and I would start moving. Not exactly the most comfortable situation for my mom. I was always fascinated by how music made me feel. My obsession grew as I got older. Once I started learning how to play instruments, I became more and more interested in exploring sound for myself. I felt connected to the music that I loved. It was all very electric for me. I wanted to make music that made people feel all the things I felt when I listened to music.

Click here for the complete interview with Peter Phippen

AV:  Tell me about what music has meant to you in your life and how it morphed from something you listened to into something that you actively worked with as a musician.

SS:  Music has been a constant in my life. It was pretty clear to my parents from a very young age that I was going to be musical. While I was in the womb, my parents would be somewhere and music would come on and I would start moving. Not exactly the most comfortable situation for my mom. I was always fascinated by how music made me feel. My obsession grew as I got older. Once I started learning how to play instruments, I became more and more interested in exploring sound for myself. I felt connected to the music that I loved. It was all very electric for me. I wanted to make music that made people feel all the things I felt when I listened to music.

Click here for the complete interview with Steve Swartz

AV:  What role did music play in your early life and as part of your overall family?  

AH: Very little in my early life actually. My parents were not musical at all but I remember the ‘Planets Suite’ by Holst being played quite regularly so maybe something influenced me… funnily enough, I remember environmental sounds from my childhood more which has certainly influenced the use of field recordings in my work. My background is as a designer and my wife is an artist, so maybe my approach to music comes from a more visual place. 

ACB:  My parents didn't have a serious interest in music or art. So, I wasn't surrounded by music at all when I was growing up. But somehow at a very early age I developed an interest for music. I remember my search for music when I was young. I discovered that the most interesting music on the radio was played at night so I tried to record lots of music on my cassette deck.  I didn't have the money to buy records, instead I went to the library and borrowed the records.

It was during this period that I started to play guitar. One day I stumbled upon a compilation - a cd by Sonic Youth. This dissonant sound had a huge impact on me. This sound brought me to Jim O'Rourke and slowly I found a whole new world of sound.

Click here for the complete interview with Anne Chris Bakker & Andrew Heath

AV:  I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about your last release pre-coronavirus that came out in 2019 so maybe you can tell me about Ice Worlds, about the music and what it represented to the body of your work as a composer.

KK:  “Ice Worlds” grew out of a newfound fascination that I have with analog synthesis and programming. Even though I have a background in analog synthesizer programming (going all the way back to my college days in 80’s), almost all of my commercially released music has been digitally rendered. I’ve been using a lot of VSTs lately, as well as samplers and digital synths. For some reason, at the end of 2017 I became interested in analog synthesis again. I think it had a lot to do with deadmau5, and specifically his album “(while 1<2)”. That album had directly influenced a lot of my creative decisions on “La Strada”, especially in terms of rhythm programming. Then deadmau5 released a series of videos through masterclass.com, a few of which demonstrated his analog gear. At that point, I was hooked. 

Before long, I was deeply immersed in synth programming, using my Juno-106, as well as a plug-in called Serum (which is based on classic waveform synthesis). I also got my hands on an ARP-2600 and a Moog Modular (both on loan). All of these new sounds that I was creating led to the creation of the opening track on the album “Ice World 1”. And then the whole project blossomed from there. 

“Ice Worlds” was a huge step for me as a composer, because not only did it bring analog synthesis back to foreground, it also re-introduced sequencing and drum programming. 

Click here for the complete interview with Kevin Keller

AV:  Generally what is it about music that draws you to it and what does it contribute to your life?

SF:  Music has a power that I believe is the closest thing in existence to true magic. Within a few measures one can be smiling and dancing, or teary-eyed in remembrance. Music’s influence is so pervasive in our lives that we don’t even realize when it’s working its spell. It’s this boundless strength that fascinates me. For thousands of years music has been used for motivation, healing and wonder. Once the soundtrack came into being it magnified music’s potential exponentially. All you need to do is watch a movie for a few minutes without music, then with, to feel the difference. The ability for a human to learn how to wield this magic through pen or baton is alchemic.

Music has been with me for as long as I can remember. My mother’s lullabies, my grandmother’s German nursery songs, the prayer for lighting the Hanukkah candles, all are in my DNA. As a listener, the sounds of Chopin, Enya, Secret Garden, 2002, Clannad, Ludovico Einaudi, David Lanz, and so many more, have been with me at both the darkest and brightest times. Music often heals me faster than any other cure, as it clears the path to inner peace. As a composer and performer, music gives me wings to express feelings I can’t get across in words and gives me a hand to extend to my listeners. 

Click here for the complete interview with Sharon Fendrich

AV:  At 17 you were already composing music and setting your musical career on course with your first album Ascension. Where did this love of music and this desire to be a musician come from at such a young age? 

CW:  My passion for music was initially sparked by overhearing Tubular Bells playing in my mother’s workroom (she was a dressmaker) when I was just a child, and also from my father demonstrating the wonders of his Quadraphonic hi-fi stereo by playing his LP of Oxygene. Sure enough, both of these early musical moments planted their seeds, but in actuality it was probably the years I spent aimlessly noodling about on the family piano that led to my first actual tunes emerging, which ultimately became some of the tracks on Ascension, and some of the other albums I released in the 80’s (including Legacy, The Speed of Sound and Ionospheres). However, I must admit that I didn’t specifically have an intention to become a musical artist. I just loved those sounds! And I wanted to create my own, so I arm-twisted a few friends to buy some early bits of gear and we formed a couple of experimental music groups. And they were pretty experimental I can tell you! I still have a few cassettes of our early attempts, and some of them aren’t that bad! Relatively cheap recording equipment was just starting to appear on the market, so it was a great time to get started. At any rate, I believe my music career was born out of my passion to explore sound, rather than music itself.

Click here for the complete interview with Clifford White

AV:  What was it about music that drew you to it at the beginning? What did it bring to your life that wouldn’t be there without music? 

JO:  I began playing trumpet when I was 8 years old. It was in Highland Park, Illinois, and I was in third grade. They brought me into the band instrument room at school, and said "pick one". I can still see the brass against the blue velour of the case - I can still smell the valve oil. My parents told me at the time that when I was asked why I chose the trumpet, I said "I want to play the melody"

But what it has brought me is much deeper than that. I moved around quite a bit when I was growing up ( by the time I was there in Highland Park, I'd already been born in Danville, IL, moved to Lynchburg, VA, Columbus OH - and after Highland Park, we moved to Providence RI, Framingham MA, and then Coral Gables FL - not to mention my own moves after that to Eugene OR, Los Angeles Ca, NYC and then finally Alameda CA)

My horn was what made me different, what got me noticed, what got me accepted. Always being the "new kid" wasn't easy. I remember when I was in sixth grade - in Framingham, MA. I had just moved there, and I brought my horn to school - and played Silver Bells that winter. I realized that no matter how "different" I was - the music that came out of my horn was understood and accepted. That remains true today. And tomorrow. 

Click here for the complete interview with Jeff Oster

AV:  Instead of asking you about what drew you to the guitar I'd like to ask what is it about music in general that resonates with you, draws you to it and what would be missing from your life if you didn't have music in it?  

VD:  I remember when I was very young, I would listen to music with my mother…Beatles, John Denver, Mammas and the Pappas…and I always felt a physical connection to music. There was something tangible in the melodies and harmonies for me. That feeling seemed to get stronger as I grew older, until it only seemed natural to start playing an instrument so I could make those sounds myself. 

AV:  You started studying the guitar when you were eleven years old. Electric guitar at that. What were your aspirations in regards to playing the electric guitar, instrumental or perhaps rock?  

VD:  When I was young, most of my friends were a couple years older than me and they were listening to Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. I was immediately drawn to the sound of the electric guitar. Ozzy’s guitarist, Randy Rhoads, was my favorite. I was entranced every time I listened to those records…I still am. I went to my first concert when I was ten years old. It was to see Ozzy Osbourne on his Diary of a Madmen tour. I knew right away that I needed to learn how to play the guitar. 

As I got older, I was interested in Rock, Heavy Metal, blues and jazz. I spent my teenage years playing in bands and trying to learn various styles of electric guitar playing.

Click here for the complete interview with Vin Downes

AV:  When did you start playing piano and was piano always your first choice as a musical instrument to play?

LT:  I tell this story often about my first piano and it is one of my favorite childhood memories. At the early age of 5, I had been pestering my parents about wanting a piano. They insisted they would not but had been secretly making arrangements to find me a piano. Shortly before my 6th birthday, the phone ran and when I said hello, the delivery driver asked me to confirm the date and time for the piano delivery. My mom was dissapointed that the surprise was ruined, but was happy to see how excited I was to finally get that piano. It wasn't much to look at. It was an old player piano with all the mechanical player parts removed. Within a couple of weeks, I began taking lessons from a wonderful teacher that lucky for me lived around the corner from my house. By the time I was about 16, I could also play the flute, all variety of clarinets, the saxophone, the guitar and was beginning to study with the organist at our church. But, the piano was my first love and remains the instrument I gravitate towards.

Click here for the complete interview with Lynn Tredeau

AV:  Where did your love of music come from? Did you have a lot of music surrounding you as you grew up?

CB:  My love of music comes from so many different areas of my life. However, I really began to develop a love of music during the time my father passed away. I was only 14 years old at the time. Music played such a huge part in helping to ease so much of the grief that I was feeling at the time. I would lose myself in artist like Marvin Gaye, Sade, and Luther Vandross for hours at a time.  

AV:  When did you discover that not only did you love to listen to music but that you wanted to create music yourself?

CB:  I learned to play the piano at an early age so as I grew older; I began to put together my own compositions. I think I wrote my first complete song when I was about twelve years old.  

AV:  Not everyone runs across new age or ambient music but some of us do and we love it. Tell me about when it was that you first heard music that could be classified as new age and how you felt about what you were hearing.  

CB:  When I was in high school, I listened to all kinds of instrumental music. I would listen to it when I had to study and I would also listen to it to relax.  

Click here for the complete interview with Carl Borden

MB:  To me it’s always interesting to learn about the complete picture, including how an artist arrived at his particular way of making music, therefore I start with my questions at a very early point.  Can You still remember, on which occasion a drone – as a noteworthy sonic or musical event in itself – ever grabbed your attention? Or else, some other musical key experience from your childhood?

MG:  Well, those were probably sounds which rather reached me on a subconscious level, and it’s hard to remember any of them consciously. The sound of the ocean surf? Faraway church bells? Some vague memories arise, similar to those triggered by fragrances, but I can’t really tell why, for example, those bells ringing from the distance touch me so deeply. Certainly there must have been also musical experiences very early on but I can’t recall which songs or albums that had been, either.   

MB:  Were there any artistic influences coming from your family or wider social environment, e.g. were your parents or other important adults around you musicians? And since spirituality plays an important role in your music, or goes along with it, I’d also be interested how much influence your parents had in such matters.  

MG:  There hardly had been any spiritual or religious influence. Also, I don’t come from a family of musicians. My brother wanted to take piano lessons, and later my parents offered the same to me as well. However I wasn’t interested in walking the path of a classical musician or visiting a conservatory. Which turned out the right decision, because when finally the wish arose to play keyboards I already was 16 and felt more clearly what I really wanted to do.

Click here for the complete interview with Mathias Grassow

AV:  How does your work as an engineer/co-producer help you when it comes to composing and fine tuning your own music?

TE:  I started working with synthesizers around 1987 while in high school and it was that experience that started me down the road of thinking about how sounds go together.  When you create sounds from scratch it becomes apparent relatively quickly that the arrangement of timbres has everything to do with how clearly each part is heard.  After dropping out of college and working for a few years for a company that installed commercial sound systems, I opened my own commercial studio in 1993. By that point I was a pretty competent synth programmer with a reasonable sense of how to shape sounds to make them work together, and I took that sense of arranging sonic elements of a track into producing records for the acoustic world of the Boston singer/songwriter folk scene.  Over the past 23 years I've worked on hundreds of albums in all kinds of genres and I continue to do whatever I can to balance the elements of a song in a way that seems to get the message of the music across.  Of course having a commercial studio at my disposal helped tremendously when I finally decided to turn my attention to my own music… and all that time between the speakers makes me pretty comfortable with the choices I made as I worked on my own material.

Click here for the complete interview with Tom Eaton

First of all I'd like to introduce Robert Rich to those readers who do not already know him.

Robert was born in 1963 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He started to build his own modular synthesizers from kits and experimented with long-form sonic environments already from 1976 on. In the late 70s he was involved in some local noise/industrial bands.While still studying psychology at Stanford University in the early 80s, he started to organize his first all-night sleep concerts for which he eventually became well known. Also around that time, he released his first solo albums (“Sunyata”, “Trances” “Drones” etc), first on cassette and then later on small European labels on CD.

In 1987, he contributed to Steve Roach’s album “Dreamtime Return”. Success on a larger scale came when a string of Robert’s albums were released on the American label “Hearts of Space” (most of all “Rainforest”). At this time his musical vocabulary already had encompassed more percussive and melodic elements than on his early drone based work.   

Click here for the complete interview with Robert Rich

AV: Why is music your preferred form of artistic expression instead of painting or some other endeavor? What is it about playing music that allows you to access the inner parts of who you are?

MC:  I used to draw pictures of enormous ships when I was very young. Dad would come home with computer printer paper like huge toilet rolls and I'd un-roll one to about six foot and then draw a massive ship. I still doodle!

Writing was also within me but a deprecating and rather cruel teacher stunted my passion by accusing me of copying a poem I wrote  when I was about 8 !

I recovered my zest for writing after completing  "The Artists way for the first time ".  (I've done it 5 times now!)

I got my first guitar at 7 and according to my mum it brought me out of my shell . I was surrounded by music as my Dad was and still is a huge enthusiast. I was lucky to be aware of The Beatles, Dave Brubeck and Debussy at a very young age. I discovered I have a great memory for music. I could sing Beethovens 7th from start to finish-from memory

Something about the headspace music took me to when I played and listened  kept me hooked in. Its still my first medium but I write a lot and take a lot of pictures and see creativity as a state of mind now . Working in Multimedia in Australia for 4 years taught me that.

Click here for the complete interview with Matt Coldrick

AV:  Music seems to supply the soundtrack to many of our lives from a very young age to the day we die. Tell me about the role that music played in influencing and shaping you during your younger years.

Steve: There was a lot of music in our house when we were young.  Our parents enjoyed the 60’s and 70’s folk music revival and were also into Flamenco music.   The two of us started performing at our family gatherings as early as 4 or 5 years old.

AV:  When was it obvious to you that music would play a larger role in your life than just listening?

David: By the time we were in high school we started jamming together and playing in bands.  Around this time we started to think about doing it professionally too.  We soundproofed our garage and had musicians over to play with us.

AV:  Did you ever have any formal training in music? How does your classical training shape/influence the music that you compose?

Steve: We both studied music in college and attended the Dick Grove Music Academy in North Hollywood.

AV:  What is your instrument of choice for creating and making your music and why were you drawn to that instrument?

Steve: Even though we both have become proficient on many instruments, I still enjoy playing the guitar the most, both acoustic and electric and David prefers acoustic piano.

Click here for the complete interview with David & Steve Gordon

AV:  Do you remember when it was that you fell in love with music?

MH:  Yes it was when I was about 2 or 3 years old, I used to listen to the Beatles on an old fashioned record player and I used to make microphones to sing into out of toilet roll tubes.  I also remember listening to “Peter and the Wolf” over and over again, I loved that.

AV:  What does music do for you that other art forms don’t?

MH:  Music just excites me much more than other art forms.  I’m kind of deeply interested in the mechanics of it even though I don’t know much about music in an academic sense.  My understanding of music is much more intuitive I think.

AV:  Did you study music academically at some point in your life? If not could you tell me how you learned to play and what advantages/disadvantages you have because you did or did not not have formal music training.

MH:  No I never studied music.  I can’t read or write it.  I learned to play firstly by watching musicians on tv and, when I was older, at gigs. Then it was simply a case of picking up instruments and trying to play them, imitating what I’d seen and heard.  It was really hard but I didn’t mind because it was so exciting to me.

I think there is an obvious disadvantage of not having had formal music training in that I am probably much more limited in what I can do technically than I might otherwise have been.  But I think my deep intuition for music makes up for that a little bit and allows me to come up with creative solutions to these limitations.

Click here for the complete interview with Mike Howe

AV:  Tell me about how being surrounded by art and music growing up influenced the way that you looked at the world and the way that you wanted to express yourself?

AC:  I believe that I was born an artist, so growing up in an artistic family only encouraged it.  As a child, I was always up to some artistic pursuit like drawing, acting, creating puppets and attempting just about every kind of artistic expression I could come up with.  There’s a family story that, when very young, I pointed at the television set and told my parents I was going to be there. There was no talking me out of it, and I drove my parents to distraction until they enrolled me in theater classes.  I was never sociable in school, and, in fact, disliked being there because it always felt like someone was trying to re-program me away from what my soul wanted to do. In theater class however, surrounded by other artists, I was suddenly sociable, much to my parents’ and teachers’ surprise.

The fact that my parents were involved in the arts only helped encourage me further.  While my siblings were also encouraged, I am the one who eventually made it a profession.  Because expressing myself was natural for me, they always encouraged me to follow what I felt. I was never told, “You’ll starve as an artist.” I was never forced to be anything by my parents other than what I was inclined to be.   

Click here for the complete interview with Al Conti

AV:  When and why did music become an important part of your life? 

SB:  Ever since I can remember, music has been in my life, Michael. Music of some sort was always playing in the house. As I child, I had toy pianos, drums, banjos, guitars, etc. I had my own record player and I'm told I would stay up late at night listening to records—I drove my family nuts with it. As a teenager, I played in garage bands with my friends, covering rock tunes. Later, in graduate school, music resurfaced again as a passion, this time as backgrounds for my painting and sculpture exhibitions; this was the early 80s, which was a time of great experimentation and innovation for me personally and for the arts in general, but a lot of technology for what I heard in my head wasn't available, or maybe at least was either not commercially available or very expensive…especially for a college student. So, I would make tape loops out of cassettes, carefully deconstructing cassettes and taping them back together again. I'd record sounds in stairwells into cheap recorders and then use my roommates Teac tape deck to layer them. Even when I was playing in bands and covering other people's music, I felt compelled to experiment and to try to recreate the ideas and sounds I was hearing in my head (which sometimes didn't go over well with my bandmates), using bows to play the strings, shoving metal between the strings, detuning, weird tunings, I tried it all. Music for me, has always been a natural outgrowth of expression, creativity and emotion, and an escape from the every day, the mundane, deadening routine. Music is and was for me, a key or doorway into other times, other realms of being.


Click here for the complete interview with Steve Brand

AV:  Tell me about your love for painting and music and how music eventually became the artistic focus of your life?

SS:  I showed an aptitude for fine arts at a very young age. I spent many hours creating paintings in my room as a child while other kids were outside playing. I specifically enjoyed working in acrylics as it lent itself to my surreal style. My earliest influences were Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. Fine Arts remained my focus when I entered college and my style diverged from Surrealism toward Science Fiction. At the time many of my paintings were reminiscent of the type of artwork you would have seen in a publication like "Omni" Magazine. About the same time I became very interested in music and picked up guitar. I became  obsessed with music as I felt it presented  degrees of freedom of expression and emotional rapport that I could not obtain singularly through painting. 

AV:  Did you feel like you were sacrificing your love of art to pursue music?

SS:  I will always love and appreciate art. Especially art as applied to Science Fiction and Surrealism. To me its all about imagination and exploration. I have always felt that I made the right decision moving into music as my core pursuit. These days most Science Fiction artists gravitate toward 3D animation and most of that expression involves movies. A number of years ago I was schooled in 3D Modeling and considered picking up animation as a second career, but ultimately I made the decision to focus on my music and engage art as a sideline of my music production.  

Click here for the complete interview with Stephanie Sante

AV:  How did the two of you first meet and what were some of the common elements of the music that you both created individually that hinted that maybe you could do something together?

Remy: Michel and I met eac hother at the E-Live electronic music festival, back in 2007. We soon found out that we shared a lot of the same musical interests, of which the music of Jean Michel Jarre was the most common. Hereafter we met at various other electronic music events, and also had some dinners together. In the meantime we became good friends, and at a certain point this lead to a music session in Michel’s Apollo Studio. We had no idea if and how things would work out, but most of the material with which we started in 2011 seemed very useable to work on for a potentional release.

Also because our individual musical styles as well as our production methods differ a lot, it was reason for both of us to try something together.

Within the months after our first session we visited each other’s studios several times to work on our tracks. One and a half year later
“PrimiTiveS” was accomplished and we actually surprised ourselves with the results of the many intensive days we spent on this project. 

Click here for the complete interview with Remy and Michel

AV:  When was it that music became an important part of your life?  

BS:  I played the piano even before I learned to walk; it was just another one of my toys.

As a teenager I used to spend long hours improvising on that tall upright piano Pleyel (1886) http://www.pleyel.fr/   At the age of 20, I began the search for my musical identity, and since then it has become an important part of my life 

AV:  Did you have lessons or any formal training in music growing up?  

BS:  When I was a child in Buenos Aires I attended music classes but at that time the musical teaching methods were tedious for me. I remember a teacher who actually forbade me to improvise on the piano. I was bored with music theory and music reading.  In 1984 I met a great teacher and experimental composer Patricio Migliazzo who took on the challenge of teaching me. He began teaching me music using methods that were bold and that were sympathetic to my needs instead of the more traditional methods that had bored me as a child.  Patricio wrote hundreds of contemplative musical scores, that we would most certainly call “ambient music” today.  

Click here for the complete interview with Bruno Sanfilippo

AV:  How did your studies in classical piano growing up help to give you a good foundation for what you do now?

JK:  Besides giving me a foundation on music in general, it gave me an outlet for emotions which ran a little high when I was growing up. Taking lessons forced me to spend time at the piano, and inevitably I would do some improvisation during the time I was supposed to be practicing.   

AV:  I’m sure all your time was not spent listening to and practicing the classics as you grew up. What was it that jogged your creativity in terms of music that you might catch on the radio or music that you might have actually bought?

JK:  Early on, some peers turned me on to Ray Lynch and Susan Ciani, which was life changing. Only in the past few years did I realize that in many ways my music falls into the new age genre. I can draw direct lines back to those artists. I like to think of my as new age music 2.0. I fell in love with Orbital and the Orb when I was 19, and those bands provided the framework for the type of psychedelic yet melodic music that I wanted to make.  

Click here for the complete interview with James Kirsch

AV:  Where did your love of music come from? Family, radio? 

DW:  My mother has always been very musical and still plays the grand piano in her living room at 85 years old! I’ve always just loved music from an early age. I did listen to the radio a lot in the 60‘s and was well into the pirate radios like radio Caroline. TV shows like SixFive Special, Juke Box Jury and of course Top of the Pops (wow, showing my age?). I bought my first 45rpm singles in 1965 - “I Get Around” by the Beach Boys and “Glad all Over” by The Dave Clarke Five. Loved the mid to late 60‘s and into the early 70’s for pop music but also loved other music of the period like Pink Floyd, Cream, Santana, Taste, Credence Clearwater Revival, Moody Blues etc etc. I lost interest in pop music in the mid 70’s - HATED punk and started to take an interest in Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze circa 1971/72 and then into more instrumental based music of EM genre, Kitaro, Jarre, Vangelis, Oldfield etc etc. 

AV:  Did you have any formal training in music and if so how did that help you to define the style of music you would eventually create?

DW:  No formal training. I played drums, not that well, in a band covering Credence Clearwater, Canned Heat, Cream style rock but that was just fun in my teens when I lived in the Far East (my father was in the Royal Navy). When I was younger I always saw myself as a Dennis Wilson style drummer (sorry, Beach Boys fan I always was and always will be) and as I grew older those rock star aspirations faded as I got a job, got married and found myself in the real world. Actually, I’m pretty sure that not having any formal training was a blessing because I’ve never been confined or influenced by any preconceived ideas about how the music should be. I think some musicians get hung up on the
“technical” instead of letting their imagination take them along. 

Click here for the complete interview with David Wright

AV:  One of your early band names was Beside the Point. Meaning that the music was the point and a band name didn't really matter. Tell me about why music is/has been important to you over the course of your life. In other words what is the point of music to you?  

BH:  I suppose it has two main functions, if that is the right way of putting it. It is an outlet for the whole range of emotions, and is a vehicle for artistic expression.

AV:  Your music has been described as a gumbo that pulls in bits and pieces from many different genres. Do you find it easier to write music when you have no boundaries in regards to what the final result will sound like?  

BH:  I'm sure I have a style or sound that I can be identified with, but I don't start writing with any particular preconception in mind. It's not a completely random process - obviously I have a starting point and a kind of loose structure when beginning a new track, but the music develops as it progresses, and this is helped by not ruling any style or influence in or out.  I write music a bit like a collage. Therefore if certain sounds or styles work musically, or sound interesting, I don't see why they shouldn't be used together. 

Click here for the complete interview with Bob Holroyd

AV:  Do you remember when it was that you first started to take aninterest in electronic music? Who were some of the first artists thatyou listened to and what was it about their music that caught yourattention? 

JA:  I think it started when a classmate of mine gave me a mixtape with italo disco (a style of 80s disco coming from Italy) when I was 10 years old. Until then I had mostly listened to Swedish mainstream pop like Europe and Roxette. There was something about electronic sounds that grabbed me, a clearness of the sounds. A few years later I discovered ambient music (Biosphere, Future Sound of London, Aphex Twin) through specialty shows on the radio and MTV Europe's Chill Out Zone. I spent all my pocket money on buying CDs from these artists and Pet Shop Boys, The KLF, Moby, Kraftwerk etc. 

AV:  When did you start composing music of your own and what style of music did you choose to begin with? Why? 

JA:  I have some tapes from when I was a child, playing the piano and singing my own songs. My mum noticed that I tried to imitate the English language before I was taught English in school. So I tried to make pop songs, but when I was maybe 15-16 years old I turned to more instrumental forms of electronic music, techno and ambient, reflecting the music I was listening to at the time. By then I also bought myself my first music computer (an Atari) and a sampler. For a long time I only made instrumental music because it gave me bigger possibilities to be experimental. I more and more turned to rhythmic electronic ambient music as my main genre. But since 2006 I've been making pop music again (very much in the 80s disco style) since I love it as well.

Click here for the complete interview with Johan Agebjorn

AV:  Music has a unique way of touching all of us in one way or another. Having read a little about you on the Internet you have said that you were singing and writing songs when you were 3 years old. What kinds of music touched you and motivated you to sing and write at the tender age of three?

DA:  Anything and everything musical touched me. I was writing Celtic songs about Donegal at age 3, interestingly enough, since I knew nothing of Ireland at the time, and the only music played in the house was classical and opera.

AV:  Was music a part of your home growing up and did your parents encourage you in your musical leanings?

DA:  My mother was a magnificent opera singer, who sang with the Symphony for many years but she and my father were completely against me pursuing any kind of musical career. There are eight children and none had any interest in music, except myself. It was very difficult because I was the only one of the eight children who had to pay for college because I choose music. I worked 3 jobs to pay for college and one was singing rock and roll, which I was sure was my direction, but over time, I found a softer side to my spirit.

Click here for the complete interview with Diane Arkenstone

AV:  Tell me about when it was that music became something more to you than just something you put on your stereo and passively listened to. What did you do to actively bring music into your life as a form of artistic expression for yourself?  

MB:  Music has felt like my primary language ever since I can remember. It has always linked me with vivid worlds full of feeling. I was immersed in classical and early music as a child, from infancy. My active listening skills began to be honed via education at home, where my father taught me how to differentiate between the various instruments of a symphony orchestra by ear by age four or so. Private music lessons began several years later, and eventually I began playing flute with local youth orchestras when I was around eleven years old or so. I can’t remember a time when music wasn’t a form of artistic expression for me.

AV:  You went to university at both Northwestern and Boston and completed formal studies in classical music performance and immediately upon graduation you set out on your career in music...no wait a career in investment banking. Seems like a contradiction. Why investment banking and not something to do with music?

MB:  The reality of what a classical musician - even a superb one - needed to do in order to make a living at it was pretty staggering back then, and even more so today. Not only was I having trouble juggling hours of daily practice with my other interests (like psychology, which I studied a good deal of as an undergrad), I was also struggling with the demand in the field for technical perfection, where if you missed even one note during an audition, you didn’t get the gig! So it gradually dawned upon me that a career as an orchestral flutist was not in the cards. Although I seriously considered going for a Masters degree in psychology at that point, I just wanted to get out into the real world for a bit and support myself financially. Waiting tables was not going to cut it. So I found my way into an entry-level trading position at a Boston bank, and worked my way up from there. The decision was purely a pragmatic one, a financial means to a creative end. I went where the jobs were, instead of where they
weren’t!  And as you know there is a strong relationship between musical aptitude and mathematical aptitude, which was certainly the case with me. There was a curious sort of peace and challenge in this new world of markets and interest rates and numbers which was oddly satisfying.

Click here for the complete interview with Meg Bowles

AV:  Where did your love of music originally come from?  

SR:  Wow what a question. I started out listening to popular music as I imagine most people did in the 70s. My brothers had a great influence in what I heard in my early life having 3 older ones. It's funny but I think what I love is sound more so than music especially since I consider lots of the music I now listen to and compose to be more sound art than music. Be it naturally created sound or electronically realised.

AV:  Who were some of the first electronic/atmospheric music artists that you listened to and what was it that attracted you to this kind of music?

SR:  I probably started hearing Electro Acoustic sounds when I was quite young on an Australian radio program, "Scratching the Surface". My brother and I thought it was funny and scary, I was only 12 years old or so. It was interesting because unlike pop music you didn't really know what was going to happen next. It was also on late at night when the surrounding environment was quiet. From this left field influence to something a bit more popular, one of my brothers bought a Tomita album, I think it was Snowflakes are Dancing. My brother having more main stream interests was also into "classical" orchestral music which I suppose Snowflakes fell into. I found it interesting in that he used synthesisers to create orchestral sounding instruments. It was using a synth to recreate acoustic instruments. I was just as intrigued by the rear cover of the record which had a picture of Isao in his studio surrounded but all his gear. I wanted that ! But that was the mainstream. What I found more interesting were snippets of synths that I would hear in pop music which were not imitating an acoustic instrument but were producing something I'd never heard before. I also started hearing other rock groups like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Rick Wakeman, Genesis, all using synths as a main part of their music but once again nothing new in the style of music.

Click here for the complete interview with Steve Roberts

AV:  What was it that originally drew you to music and eventually being a performer yourself? 

MA:  My dad played in country bands when I was very young and that made a huge impact on me. I was 8 years old when I started really becoming interested in the guitar. Around that time (1964-65) I began listening to The Beatles and a lot of Motown and R & B records. 

AV:  Having listened to a lot of music during the 70's and 80's I remember some great stuff and some not so great stuff. Tell me about the music that you made and the groups that you played with during that time and what you enjoyed most about the music that you played during that time period.  

MA:  I joined my first "professional" band Brimstone when I was in High School and some friends of mine who were starting a new band needed a lead singer.

I loved to sing so it seemed the natural thing to do. I was a "bass player" at the time but they already had one so being the front man was very interesting to me. It was a great way to hone my vocal skills and learn how to become an "entertainer". I was really into the whole Peter Gabriel thing at the time.  Disco was a raging phenomenon but there were still many great bands to listen to. My favorites were Genesis, Yes, ELP and all of the English "progressive rock" bands. The ascendancy of electronic music in the 80's gave exposure to some fantastic artist's too like Peter Gabriel, Michael Brooks, Depeche Mode and the Art Of Noise. All made significant contributions to how music is conceived today. 

Click here for the complete interview with Michael Allison

AV:  I've read that your iPod is filled with quite the variety and selection of tunes these days. What did you listen to growing up and how did that shape your attitude about how you wanted to be involved with music yourself? 

MM:  Like most kids, I grew up listening to the music my parents listened to.  I was lucky since my dad was pretty hip.  I can remember him and I listening to David Bowie, Blondie and Van Halen.  When I started exploring music on my own, around the age of 12, I mainly listened to New Wave.  Bands such as The Talking Heads, Oingo Boingo and Devo were some of my favorites.  Around this time, I joined a drum and bugle corps called The Phantom Regiment.  My new friends from this social circle were all into hard rock or heavy metal.  I became exposed to Ozzy, Iron Maiden, AC/DC and Judas Priest.  So from this point on I walked a fence through middle and high school.  I loved all the new electronic that was happening.  Depeche Mode, Ministry and Cabaret Voltaire would get played on my turntable right after spinning Metallica, Megadeth and Kreator.  

Click here for the complete interview with MjDawn

AV:  What was it that got you interested in playing music in the first place? What was your instrument of choice when you started out? 

AS:  The first record I remember owning as a kid was the soundtrack to Disney's Jungle Book. There are a lot of great songs on there, but I can still remember the overture and the magical and mystical quality it had and how it made me feel. As I got older I fell in love with The Beatles, then bands like Led Zeppelin and The Who. Around the age of 15 I was determined to become some combination of Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend. My dad bought me an acoustic guitar at McCabe's in Santa Monica and then the following year, I got my first electric guitar,  a beautiful white strat with a maple neck and a Marshall half stack that was way too big and loud for me, but I loved it and it allowed me to be a rock god in my own garage in southern California. 

Click here for the complete interview with Rich Brodsky

AV: Your bio says that you started playing music as a child. How young were you when you first started playing? What was it about music that captured your interest so early in life?

FJH: My grandmother moved into our house when I was 8 years old. When she moved in she brought a 100 year old iron frame German piano with her. My mother showed me the staff and stave and how to work out which note was which in relation to the musical score and within 6 weeks I could play the first part of Fur Elise.

Click here for the complete interview with Fiona Joy Hawkins

AV: Is there any particular instrument that you felt drawn to more than any other? Why?

JM: The electric bass was the first instrument I picked up aged eleven. I went on to work with guitar, drums, keys – whatever I could get my hands on really. Finally the computer, which is to my mind an extremely versatile, flexible instrument. The bass remains my primary ‘real’ instrument for most live or studio contexts. I find its combination of rhythmic and melodic qualities deeply appealing but it could just be that it’s my first love.

Click here for the complete interview with James Murray

AV: Did you ever have any thoughts about following in your father's footsteps or was it always going to be about Janet's music and nothing else? Could you elaborate on that please.

JR: No, not really. I loved his music and what he did, but it wasn't for me. If I'd wanted a career in music more than the music, I probably should have stayed in Nashville but can you see that? I don't think so. Now that's just about following in his footsteps musically--I did follow him, and was inspired by him, to keep trying to find my voice. That's what he did, he was a total pioneer in his field and really wanted the limelight as well. I like the process of creating more than anything.

Click here for the complete interview with Janet Robbins

AV: Where did your love of music come from and what were some of your earliest expressions of this love?

CK: The love of music came early on in my youth. I was exposed to some of my dad’s favorite music, the progressive rock movement. Music from Yes to Emerson Lake & Palmer and Chicago. One day I discovered my dad’s old trumpet in the garage and started making what could be called noises with it. This led to a very long journey of playing the trumpet in bands and orchestras.

AV: Did you ever have any formal training in music? If so how did that prepare you for being a professional player and if not did that create any limitations to how quickly you could move ahead?

CK: Yes, I studied classical music at Baylor University and received a bachelor’s degree in music performance. Baylor was a small enough school that it gave me the opportunity to perform in all of the major ensembles my freshman year. Many larger more well known schools fill their top ensembles with graduate students leaving you with just the practice room for several years.

Click here for the complete interview with Chad Kettering