Here's my story: Like many kids I was tragically forced against my will to take piano lessons. I made a deal with my parents to switch to guitar lessons when I was fifteen. I immediately became obssesed with Rock and Roll music and started a garage band aptly called "Confused Potential". I was painfully shy but secretly loved to sing along to Morrisey, Oasis, Radiohead and The Beatles (a change from my more American guitar shredding diet of Guns and Roses and Ratt.)
Around eighteen I moved to San Francisco and became involved in theater. I was accepted into American Conservatory Theater's acting program. I spent my early twenties acting and studying but after graduating and spending a year in Los Angeles auditioning for television by day and singing at open mics by night, I decided to quit acting and devote my life entirely to my boyhood dream of becoming a Singer-Songwriter. Having been musically raised in a sense by Elliot Smith, Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke I felt inadequate and drifted for a bit in various genres. I made a Country/roots-rock record in 2004 which I am somewhat embarrassed by but finally in 2007 I found with the making of my EP Dreamers my musical identity and confidence had grown greatly.
The last three years have been personally the toughest of my life with both the recession and the loss of my father I've had to overcome a lot and grow up. I started pushing myself as a songwriter to tackle the questions and pain we all have and avoid the frivolity that had taken over in some of my earlier songs. I've spent the past year and a half basically in my room with an 8-track messing around with arrangements and guitar, vocal, bass, piano parts. I started studying classical piano. I quit smoking and work on my vocal range daily and I am pressuring myself to be more prolific. I hope some of that comes through on this EP but most of all I hope it is moving and entertaining.
Thanks for listening.
- Sherman Baker, October 2011
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