BIO
KEN
Born in 1959
Lives in the Metro Detroit Area
Songwriter, Keyboard player, Vocalist, Drummer
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Ken grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 60's. If you wanted to play the drums in the 5th grade elementary school band, you were required to start piano lessons two years earlier. His family moved to Detroit in 1969 and Ken started 5th grade drumming that fall, those two years of piano lessons would pay off. He continued piano, drums and percussion through mid college. This formal education, which included writing charts for drum line and percussion ensembles would help him later when writing pop songs. Ken met Neal in college around the fall of 1980 when a mutual friend asked the two of them to get as jazz group together for a sorority Casino Night in the spring of 1981. They formed the sextet "Aire -Tite", playing originals and jazz covers. By the mid 80s Ken spent more time solo recording. Enter the Roland JX-8P. Up until this time, Neal's monophonic Yamaha CS-5 was the sole synth in their music. The JX changed everything. 6 note polyphony and all those warm lush analog sounds were the perfect contrast to Ken's drum machines and rhythm boxes. At that time there was also an explosion in the music industry of new synthesizers, effects and other gear. Ken continued recording on his own (never far from Neal's constructive comments), and when he did not have access to a rhythm guitar or lead instrument - Ken wrote synth patches to cover those parts. Ken and another guitar played formed "Fun Club" in 1989, a pop-funk-danceclub band playing covers and originals from Ken's boxes of cassettes. Darren joined the band in 1990 as a second keyboard player. Fun Club played around Detroit through 1993 and Darren and Ken continued playing in a trio at small clubs. Ken was working 60 hour weeks outside of music and eventually he had to leave the band scene. The boxes of Tascam cassettes went under his bed, survived a move, and surfaced again in 2018. Ken decided to set up his recording studio once again and started writing and recording music again. Of course, the heart of the studio is his vintage gear and the JX-8P.
DARREN
Born in 1969
Lives in the Metro Detroit Area
Musician, Keyboard Player, Vocalist, Recording Engineer, Producer
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Darren began to play the trumpet in 5th grade and was forced to quit in 10th grade after getting braces. Darren was 1st chair quite a bit of the time, it was a sad time. His father took him to see Maynard Ferguson live, this would be his first rock concert. He was hooked on loud, live music. He was then inspired by the snyth-crazed character in the 1980's movie FAME. Darren then took up keyboards on a small Casio, quickly moving to a full size 88 key Yamaha electric piano his father purchased for him to pursue his dream. Music would eventually be his sole source of income in later years. In 1984 he bought his first synthesizer, a Roland Juno 106, with the money he made teaching Break Dancing at a nearby dance studio. He eventually graduated from Detroit's "Wayne State University" in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and immediately joined a working cover band. He never got a day job and has been playing in live bands full-time ever since. Darren met Ken when he joined "Fun Club" in 1990. Ken and Darren stayed friends and had no idea what was eventually going to happen in 2018. In 2015, Darren started at small studio call "EarJunkie". He currently records and mixes local Detroit artists. In 2020 Darren will be working with Ken as "Product of the 80s" to release several albums and music videos. He is very excited to dive into some retro synth driven music that inspired him back-in-the-day to be a musician. The pandemic of 2020 locked Darren in his house causing his live music career to come to an abrupt halt. His cover band has been put indefinitely on hold. With a lot of time on his hand, he has moved the studio home and focused on Ken's project. It has become a wonderful labor of love reviving all of Ken's music from the 80's.