The Story Behind the Music of Psychotik Orbit Co.

The Beginning – 1994

Growing up, I thought music was to hard to make and I had no intention of playing it. I was into airplanes.

My dad is a guitarist. There was always all kinds of instruments around the house as far back as I can remember. During high school, I was exposed to all kinds of rock, metal, punk and groove. I loved it. 

We used to go to the live shows with the local punk bands. That all moved me. 

While at a friends house, I was fiddling with an out-of-tune kid guitar and making cool sounds. I realized then that it was fun and maybe this is something I could do as a hobby.

I wanted to learn how to play, but I could not afford lessons. I would just go to the shows and learn what I can and ask questions. I grew up in a musical household. My parents were performers before I was born. They played R&B, Funk, Soul, and some Jazz. They were very good at what they did. They had the clubs packed. They played with all types of acts. There was always an abundance of music equipment around. It was a very cool and magical experience growing up around music.

I did not really know in detail rock, metal, heavy metal because it wasn’t played in our family social circle back then. I used to listen to AC/DC, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Blind Melon. The selection was limited, but I also had my Top 40 music and Hip Hop.

I used to be at the music store buying used CDs for bands I never heard of because I thoroughly enjoyed their sound and deemed it inspirational.

For the Christmas of 1994, my parents purchased my first guitar. It was a Squire by Fender. Black & White body with light wood for the neck. It was beautiful. I did not know how to tune it and was tempted to give up. I persisted, jammed out with other people. I received a drum set by trading a pair of roller skates to a friend. I had a 1965 Ludwig drum set in blue with everything except the high hat. I went to the music store and purchased a high hat to complete the set. I would jam in the basement of my best friends house with other people that lived there and sung and played.

I wanted to be in a band. I played drums in jam sessions with other friends and learned about feel, timing and rhythm.

I wanted to demonstrate to potential band mates my ideas in the form of audio because I didn’t know, nor was interested in sheet music. So, I had to do the recording, piece by piece.

By the end of 1995, I realized that, I can record myself using 2 audio cassette recorders. If I recall correctly, I would record the beat on one, then play the beat as I did the guitar to the next tape deck. Then I would repeat the process to get 3 tracks. The first attempt did not work out because the tapes were of poor quality. Played it for a friend at the pizza shop I worked at when not at school, and the guy told me that it didn’t sound good quality wise. Then I tried the same process with the same songs and made the 1st Demo.

I didn’t like doing the solos in the beginning, but I knew, if it wasn’t done and done correctly, the track couldn’t be considered complete.

Now, I consider it the fun and challenging part of writing a song using guitar.

During the spring of 1996, the band Scripture had been formed and for the purpose of demonstrating what we played, the Scripture 5 Song Demo was created.

For the first time, I detuned the guitars and bass. This old 4-Track reel to reel was used to make this recording. I suspect there was some minor inconsistency in the rotation of the reels which made for a very interesting effect. I did all tracks and had my bandmate Jason Tampanello on the vocals. He has his own group Medula on Bandcamp. I attempted to sell copies of this tape at school and the music store.

Summer of 1996

By the summer of 1996, the vision for what I do had been established. I wanted every album to sound different in some way. I wanted to experiment with different sounds and concepts. I nicknamed this era, “My Renaissance”. I worked a summer job while on summer break from high school. I worked in downtown Wilmington DE at the time. I was in need of an affordable 4 track device. I took some money that I made, and purchased a Tascam 4 track recording device. This was the first 4 track that I would own. I used it for a couple of years and even took it to college later on. It was interesting how I experimented with the Alesis SR-16. I was very familiar with the SR-16, having used it back in the early 90s. The Alesis SR-16 is a legendary, highly affordable drum machine originally released in 1990. I spent the time I wasn’t working, sleeping, or hanging out recording tracks. It was a magical time for me writing music.

Below are the albums and demos captured between 1996, 1997 of the Renaissance era. Available on Soundcloud

1996 the Renaissance -XMS6	Renaissance Raw	Radioactive Substrate

To be continued…

Psychotik Orbit Albums @ SoundCloud