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Relocator was founded in the summer of 2004 and was originally envisioned as a "full" live band. Never managing to maintain a stable complete lineup for long, four years and several personnel changes later the band self-destructed in late 2008. But the music lived on. In early 2009 original founding members Stefan Artwin (guitars, programming) and Michael Pruchnicki (bass, fretless bass) decided to revive Relocator as a project to finally finish the songs they had worked on for so long.
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They rehearsed, wrote and played at high volume until they all very nearly needed a holiday and a hearing aid. The result is a multi-national endeavour: Joining them on the first Relocator album are Bartek Strycharski (electric violin), new talent Frank Tinge from the Netherlands (drums, percussion) and special guest star Derek Sherinian from the USA (all keyboards). | |
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Stefan Artwin was born in Germany and began playing guitar at age 12 after hearing a radio show featuring Jimi Hendrix. After a few years of initial lessons he continued to teach himself and started to play in different bands. During this time he became influenced by various music styles like jazz, blues, funk or fusion, and his guitar style expanded to more diverse styles such as Al Di Meola, Allan Holdsworth, Edward Van Halen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen. Besides playing guitar, Stefan got more and more interested in composing and arrangement and expanded his knowledge to jazz, fusion and classical music. He gathered experience in this area by writing original songs, playing in bands or writing songs for other artists. Today, Stefan Artwin feels more like a composer than a guitarist, but this does not prevent him from playing guitar... |
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Michael Pruchnicki was born in Poland. His musical training began with piano lessons around the age of 5, but his family's move to Germany a couple of years later cut his career as a classical pianist awfully short. :) It wasn't before the age of 20 that he picked up an instrument again, this time the bass guitar. The main inspiration at that time was the amazing playing of Dream Theater bassist John Myung. To this day Michael plays his trusty John Myung signature model Yamaha 6-string bass, which, as he keeps emphasizing, he bought because of the great price (for a 6-stringer) and not because of the nice signature on it. More recently Michael has been impressed by fusion-style players like Tony Grey or Sean Malone and the criminally underrated Tony Franklin who inspired him to pick up a fretless bass. Michael's musical interests range from acoustic jazz and pop (but not the stuff you usually hear on the radio) to Meshuggah-level metal with a little bit of everything inbetween (just as long as it isn't dull). |
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Frank Tinge was born in the Netherlands and started playing drums at the age of 16. At first, he was influenced by Mike Portnoy. In 2000, an earth-shattering and life-changing concert of Planet X shook up his world and opened his eyes. Musicianship on such a level was something he had never experienced before. Virgil Donati was his new idol. He likes to listen to a lot of music, mostly in the progressive genre, but also any other genre, as long as it's of good quality. Favourite bands of his are Planet X, Dream Theater, Symphony X, Frost* and Spock's Beard. Frank is pretty much self-taught, although he did take a few lessons to get some hints and tips on his technique. He learned most of his skills by just listening to his favourite musicians and bands and playing along. Besides Relocator, he is involved in a Dutch hard rock band called Superbug, you can find more about them at http:/www.superbug.nl. |
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Bartek Strycharski was born on the 1st of March 1977 in Poland (Chrzanow). His musical education began when he was 6 years old in Primary Music School in his home town and it continued through Secondary Music School in Katowice and Krakow. He received his Diploma in Music after he completed his studies at the college in Krakow (although he already preferred playing rock to classical music - as he says). His rock career started with Borderline (http://www.borderline.pl) in 1997. Everyone in the band had previous music experience with other bands so they started performing live after just a couple of months of playing together. During the next 5 years they played a lot of concerts with famous Polish groups and won several music festivals. In 2002 Bartek moved to Germany (Nuernberg). In the spring of 2009 he was invited to play with Relocator on their first album that you can hear now. Enjoy! |
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