Mansfield

We have been playing together for a little over a year now Shane and I met through a mutual musician friend and we hit it off right away.I had just moved to Boise from Southern California and had been toying with putting something together for awhile but hadn't had much of an opportunity to check out the Boise music scene other than going to the local bars and checking out the bands there. Finding a drummer has been one of our biggest challenges ,its seems that there are some great players in town but they are either comfortable with the projects they are in or they weren't interested in our type of music which is cool because we are not your average band playing the kind of music that everyone else seems to be playing.At times it felt like we were the Boise version of Spinal Tap because we went through several drummers who for one reason or another didn't work out.T Bone (Tyler Jones) sent us a message on our Myspace asking if we needed a drummer and as luck would have it we had a show coming up at The Bouquet in 3 days,,we did some heavy rehearsals and he nailed every song like we had been together for months,awesome!
I have been playing music since I was a teenager,my Mom got tired of me moping around the house one summer and signed me up for guitar lessons.I loved it ,it was the connection that I needed and was missing and I haven't stopped playing since then. Shane has been playing bass for quite awhile as well, he has done everything from country rock to metal bands. The same goes for T Bone although he's a little younger he has paid his dues.
So what does the future hold for Mansfield ,we would love to get back in the studio and record some more material but for right now playing every possible show that we can get on is the primary objective.
I have been composing music for as long as I can remember ,I did the whole copy band scene for years and made a pretty fair living at it but always felt that my own material stood head and shoulders above what I was playing, finally it was time to take the step and go out and do my own thing and I have been very happy with that and fortunately people seem to enjoy what I come up with so thats a plus.
Inspiration comes from many different places for me ,sometimes Ill wake up and be able to sit down and just knock a song out like I had played it for weeks.other times Ill get a phrase or a mood that I want to pursue and just roll with it and see where my hands take me.
Gearwise I have my favorite Strat(its a '72) which is my main guitar I have had it for so long and we have been so many miles together that I know its little quirks and twists.I do have several other beautiful instruments that I use though ,an Ibanez Jem,an Ibanez JS1000 which was signed by Joe Satriani,a Les Paul which I won in the Guitar Center King of the Blues competition,various acoustics and classical guitars as well as some really cool mother of pearl inlaid Japanese guitars that look fantastic.I have a basic amp setup which includes 2 Marshall cabinets and a Line 6 head.My pedal setup is where it gets a little crazy,I go straight into a Steve Vai Wah into a Digitech Whammy pedal from there into a P.O.G octave generator out of that into a Boss NS-1,with a Boss DD-3 delay and out of that into an old Boss chorus pedal.The amp head haas a bunch off settings on it as well so I can get some pretty cool sounds going on.
Shane has a basic bass setup using a couple of cabinets and a head ,he has a really nice Ibanez bass that he's fond of and he has a Warlock bass for some of the detuned stuff that we do.
T Bone has a great drum set ,its a vintage Ludwig set that he got from a lady whos husband had died and had left in storage in the garage he paid $500.00 for it but had it appraised at around $5,000.00 because its some kind of collectors item ,its very cool looking very old school colors.

I think our style is pretty unique to this area ,I don't know of to many bands that are playing what we do ,its original it rocks,it is total fun to play and people seem to enjoy it.We do hear the occasional "How come you guys don't have a singer?" but we let the guitar do the talking and their question gets answered pretty quick.
I picked Over the Rainbow because that song was one of those songs where it just all fell into place at once ,I recorded the lead guitar track in one take and added in the cool little drop ins from The Wizard of OZ for some fun.The classical piece in the middle there is from The Hall if the Mountain King which seemed to work well over the chord progression of Rainbow, again it was for fun.plus the movie was my wifes favorite movie and I wanted to do something for her she might enjoy.In the end its all about having fun with the music and playing some great guitar as well,having people enjoy what we are doing is just icing on the cake.