Taylor Jordan Entertainment
723 Point Street
Houma, Louisiana 70360
1668 Merriman Road, #23
Akron, OH 44313
Office-Mobile: 330.414.9552
Email: jquinn@sunburstentertainment.com Web: www.SunburstEntertainment.com
There was a period of time when largely-instrumental/guitar-led rock music was all the rage. But somewhere along the way, the genre appeared to have taken a back seat to other rock forms. In recent times, however, an unmistakable renaissance of this style has gotten underway - and the debut release by Dean Shoultz, ‘All the Pretty Horses,’ certainly helps confirm this theory. With a style/sound that recalls the classic late ‘80s/early ‘90s work by such guitarists as Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Eric Johnson, Shoultz certainly has the power and the talent in his fingers to turn the head of many a six-string aficionado.
“I’m from Houma, Louisiana, which is about an hour south of New Orleans,” explains Shoultz. “It’s truly the heart of the Cajun land. I started playing guitar when I was twelve - my father had gotten me an inexpensive Sears guitar, but I got every dollar out of it.” And soon after, Shoultz began studying some of the era’s top rock guitarists. “I grew up in the ‘Van Halen era,’ so obviously, Eddie Van Halen is an influence stylistically. I always liked Brad Gillis a lot from Night Ranger - I thought he was an underrated guitar player.”
Several local bands came and went with Shoultz at the helm, before the guitarist decided to take his playing to the next level. “I took some of the online courses [through the Berklee College of Music]. I was one of the first students of their online program. I came from more of a non-scholastic approach of the guitar - I knew how to make a guitar sound good, but I didn’t understand theory.” After releasing an album with his brother, Paul, as part of the band King Creole (2001’s ‘Spiritual Democracy’), Shoultz began eyeing doing his own album, which would put the guitar at the forefront, and would be “A bit more ‘80s-ish as far as the guitar side of it.”
Armed with an arsenal of Melancon® guitars and Mesa Boogie amps, Shoultz hooked up with local producer Pershing Wells. With Shoultz supplying all of the guitars, most of the bass, and lead vocals on two songs (while all the percussion consists of electronic drums), ‘All the Pretty Horses’ was ready to roll. “The songs started off with hooks and rhythmic patterns that came to mind, and we just expounded on that. But it’s not mindless playing - it’s more melodic in nature. They’re really traditional rock n’ roll songs, with a pop vibe to them. The record is primarily instrumental - there are two songs that have vocals and are more traditional kind of rock songs, but the rest are instrumentals. We did the record as a ‘theme album’ - where one song moves into the next. There are a couple of sound bites on some of the songs, like on ‘War,’ we implemented some sound bites from Franklin Roosevelt, when he started talking about the December 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor.”
And while ‘All the Pretty Horses’ is one of the most consistent guitar-heavy albums to come around in recent times, Shoultz has some specific favorite tracks. “I really like the song ‘No Slumber’ - it’s got some fun licks in it, and some of the licks started out as warm-up exercises I did for a long time. I was playing it for my producer, Pershing Wells, and he said, ‘Man, we should make that into a song.’ The ones that mean the most to me is ‘Hero,’ which is about my daughter - there’s very little emphasis on the guitar on that one, it’s more of a rock-type song. ‘Sequel to the Server’ is one of the songs on the album; I have a software company as a profession. There’s a Microsoft product called SQL Server which is a database engine, and it’s sort of a play on the name of the Microsoft product. I really like the song ‘War,’ which starts off mellow, then grows, and comes back down again.”
While music is a main part of Shoultz’s life and despite his software responsibilities, Shoultz hopes to find the time to support the release of ‘All the Pretty Horses’ with live dates. “Surely, that’s in the plans - hopefully in the first quarter of next year, we’ll start finalizing that. I guess we’re going to wait and see where the market takes us.” And what about the future of his music? “I’m going to continue and put out another record - in the same vein. And just keep putting the pedal to the metal.”