SCOPERISE:  Have you performed in or produced any bands?

DANTE: I performed bass in a band called 'GhosT Theory'  (formerly Face Off).  We were mostly a garage band with a focus on writing and performing originals.

SCOPERISE:  How did you meet each other? 

DANTE: We met at work actually.  We all worked for a Logistics company in Altona Melbourne.  I already knew and wrote songs with the guitarist under the name 'The Alchemists' and through him the lead vocalist joined.

SCOPERISE:  What kind of material did you write with 'GhosT Theory'?

DANTE: A highly original blend actually.  The vocalist was some pop / R&B whereas me and Pete were rock, so it was a kind of fusion. 

The song 'Alive' was a spontaneous creation sparked when Pete played a riff on guitar which to me sounded a bit like 'The Police'.  From there everyone joined in and the song kind of evolved out of nowhere.

SCOPERISE:  And what was the song writing process with 'The Alchemists'?  

DANTE: Pete was a guitarist so he would put down some ideas in his studio, often some guitar riffs. vocals and a working title.  From there we would work on the song giving it structure, more lyrics, instruments etc until the song was finished. 

A couple of years ago after we hadn't written for a while, I stayed at his house down the peninsula one weekend (a very inspiring environment) and we managed to write and record four songs.  We set ourselves the goal of writing and recording two songs a day.

SCOPERISE:  Where did your band names originate from?  

DANTE: Mostly invented by myself, trying to be cosmic or mystic.  Same with many of the song titles.

SCOPERISE:  Did you work with any other bands in other capacities? 

DANTE: 'Deep' were another originals band with some fantastic musicians I met though my cousin.  They recorded an album in my studio which I mixed and mastered.  A great experience working with real working musicians.

SCOPERISE:  How did that go? 

DANTE: Fantastic.  'Deep' recorded the drums in a large studio and then we used the tracks from those sessions as a time base to individually record the other parts.  When that was done, we mix-mastered the tracks and the resulting masters went to a CD production house.  Then the band performed a live gig to release the CD with my cousin on video production.  It was my first experience at producing a professional performance band.

SCOPERISE:  Given that it was the first time what did you learn that you could improve on? 

DANTE: This was in the 90's and computers weren't very fast then. Mainly I would use a higher sample rate these days of course. 

I've remixed those old stems since with my current technology and there is some improvement.  But my take away advice from this is to always record at the highest sample rate possible.  96Khz I think is the bottom line these days.