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Bill Price
with Paul Holman on guitar and Grover Parido on cello.
As a fan of The Beatles and Bob Dylan as a teenager, Bill Price set his sights on being a songwriter. “I don’t know if it was the realization that I was always going to be just an average guitar player or the fact that I always have an opinion that got me headed in the songwriting direction. But for whatever reason, I just got that fire. I was inspired by certain music to try and do the same thing, and I still am.”
Early collaborations with his cousin Dave Price and later on with Mario Noche were also based around writing original music. “Dave was the first person I knew that actually thought about having a concept for a song. Being in my early twenties, I thought that was pretty unique.”
The collaboration with Mario Noche was also a fertile creative period. “I think we both respected each other’s songwriting ability and that inspired us to always try and bring something of quality to the table.”
In 2000 Price recorded his first album of original material, “Bones & Apples.” It received airplay in the US and Europe on college and independent radio. He also teamed up with Indiana bluesman, Gordon Bonham to form “The Brains Behind Pa” – a three, sometimes five-piece band inspired by Dylan’s songs and influences. “Gordon and I both have a love of Dylan’s music and much that inspired him, so we started a side project to kind of explore all of that music.” The result was “Old Hat,” an EP CD that contained seven traditional, folk and blues songs. It also received airplay, on college and independent radio stations across the US, in Canada and Europe.
A songwriter that is in a band inspired by Bob Dylan is bound to take the next logical step – that is, write original music for his band. “It’s an obvious extension of what we were exploring in all the old songs and Dylan’s music. It was time to apply those qualities that we like in all of that music, to our own music. Carve out our own identity.” The resulting album, “Better For The Deal,” released in May of 2006, has fifteen original songs and strongly reflects the band’s influences. It has also received airplay in the U.S. and Europe on college and independent radio.
Price released The Circus & The Gallows 3-song CD single in 2007. In late 2009 he released With the Eye of a Skeptic…, a full-length, acoustic-based CD. “It received good reviews and radio airplay overseas – mainly in Europe,” Price explains. “The reception to the Skeptic album was the most positive and extensive that any of my albums had received up to that point. It received a couple of reviews in the U.K. and airplay in Ireland which was new territory for my projects.” There were also positive reviews and airplay in Canada, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, and Croatia to name a few others, as well as some airplay on independent and college radio in the U.S.
In 2010 Price began to expand out from his native Indiana by playing regional shows around the Midwest. 2011 saw the beginning of the recording sessions for his latest album called “I Can’t Stop Looking at the Sky.”
Price embarked on his first serious mini-tour in 2013 playing shows in the Northwest United States as recording continued through 2014 for the “I Can’t Stop Looking at the Sky” album project. The project was finalized in the spring of 2015. What had begun as a single CD, evolved into an ambitious thematic music/design/literary project. Inspired by traveling to the Western United States, the songs cover themes such as: time, home, forgiveness, grace, truth, childhood and paradox. The resulting deluxe package includes two hours and twenty-three minutes of music on two CDs, two 36-page oversized, extensive lyric booklets, a 120-page journal from the inspirational trip, a 160-page book of poems, short stories and essays, as well as other items such as buttons, posters and stickers. The project was released in June of 2015. September saw a tour of the Northwest.
Special Guest :
Josiah Whitley 7:45pm to 8:30pm