Rik Berryere
(Rik Andreas Berryere)

Bio:

When I was a yoot I wanted to learn to play the guitar, so I took lessons from a Music Guy who told me to play right-handed or forget about the lessons - no lefties allowed. I struggled for two years to master 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and failed. Years later my bud Jef in high school suggested stringing my guitar backwards and playing it upside down. This really appealed to my sense of how to get things done, so I followed his advice and within months we'd formed a group.

Well... sort of a group. Futzing around Rideau District High School aping Monty Python skits was an odd approach to forming a music group, but it worked for us. We recorded anything that made us laugh, but musically speaking were all over the map - which was fine with my musical tastes. I loved disco, heavy metal, electropop - and anything with bagpipes.

I've never been wildly interested in live performing, and coupled with fairly mediocre musical skills, a life as a rock star wasn't very likely. My one strong point - songwriting - meant working with other musicians and the ego hassles that went along with it. My musical ambitions, such as they were, finally washed up on the shores of reality in the mid-eighties when our electro-pop rock band Mind The Gap quietly disintegrated, and I sold off my basement studio - but not before a bunch of rough recordings were vaulted on cassette for possible embarrassment sometime in the future. These recordings included the now-infamous synthesizer tune "Chocolate Rabbits", and 49.8% of everyone who has ever listened to "Chocolate Rabbits" emphatically agree that the entire music industry dodged a bullet with that one. Hah. Little did they know...

I honestly never thought I'd get involved with music again until my wife gifted me with Apple's GarageBand in 2006. Now, I had the means to recreate the tunes that were still bouncing around in my head, and the more I explored GB, the more excited I became. My musical skills were rusty as hell but I began recording music again anyway, and damned if some of the talents roaming around MacJams here actually like it. Some of the songs are new, while others are retreads of old Mind The Gap tunes - even the infamous "Chocolate Rabbits" mentioned earlier got revved up with a fresh new chassis and body, shiny and slick and crazy as ever.

So what's coming? I wish I could tell you. Two years ago I thought I was done with music forever, and now... well, never say never, right?

Then there's the novels... info on Dragon's Keeper (and the forthcoming The Electric Midnight) can be found on my website, or by clicking the cover pic on the left.