SEEKING
Band to Join, Vocalist, Vocalist - Bass, Vocalist - Baritone, Vocalist - Tenor, Vocalist - Soprano, Rhythm Guitar, Lead Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Bass Guitar, Drums, Other Percussion, Violin, Trumpet, Saxophone, Keyboard, Piano, Background Singer, Harmonica, Flute, Other.ABOUT
Okay. When my high school garage band the Samurai Sorcerers broke up in 2005, I became the only lone remaining member left in the group of rock n' roll outlaws playing the guitar, singing and fronting the Samurai. We done everything from playing school plays to jamming in the garage. So, I was now officially declared a solo artist without a band of friends and guitar players to play with. So I had my alter ego known as "Silent Minister" to use as the bandname to my solo project. I don't have anybody to jam with except myself using a guitar and amp. I was pretty inactive as a musician and as a part of Silent Minister for most of 2005, it took me awhile to think about what to do so I made the conclusion that the Silent Minister Band will be my main big thing.
Me (Patrick Lew) left CCSF in the fall of 2005 after a long battle with isolation on campus and got enough free time to play music all I want with just me and a guitar. I used to play in a band called Samurai Sorcerers with my high school friends until we grown apart as friends and musicians. I was very sad when me and my friends broke up Samurai after an ill-fated concert tour and my status as a happy underground rock musician went crumbling down. I had nothing else to do. Nowhere else to go. Music was always a huge part of my life, so I needed to do something to get myself heard.
So I formed a side project called Silent Minister (formerly billed as AZN Beatles) shortly after I broke up with my ex-girlfriend I met on the popular website and leaving CCSF. I was very unhappy at the time because CCSF was the school I went to but I figured nothing was working for me over there because everyday I felt isolated and all that, so I didn’t want to deal with going to CCSF anymore. I didn’t get along that much with the students on campus so I decided if that wasn’t going to work out for me, then what’s the point about even going to a school with kids being mean to you and feeling all lonely and sh*t?! So playing music in Silent Minister with any musician I can find was a way for me to get my mind off of things. Those are one of the reasons why I reassembled Silent Minister.
Silent Minister originally had four musicians in the lineup, and was a de facto version of Samurai Sorcerers during the middle of 2005, but egos and band/musical conflicts got in the way of our progress as a garage band so the Minister was now down to just me and sometimes my friend and keyboardist Bruce Huang. I thought of many times by hiring a lead guitarist or drummer, since I can’t play either of those instruments on my own. But I figured to myself, Silent Minister is Patrick Lew man! It’s my alter ego and I created that nickname for myself! So why hire a permanent group member into Minister if they can’t back down to what you’re all about? Not to sound conceited, but Silent Minister was always Patrick Lew’s solo project. Since Samurai was more intended with a band collaboration with me and my high school pals, it didn’t work out the way it did musically and creatively, so if Samurai wasn’t going to be participating in equal songwriting and musical partnership together in the studio, why don’t I just make it my solo project under my nickname “Silent Minister?” That sounded more coherent to me I thought. So I figured I would intend to play all the instruments in Silent Minister, because it’s not a “band collaboration” thing. No one is in it. So I will call it my solo project.
I think Silent Minister played live about two times in Hong Kong most recently. It was the right time to perform onstage I thought. What I did was support to HK Band Sound by putting on a show at a Japanese restaurant in the Mong Kok district. It wasn't taped live (meaning there are no recordings of the show) and no pictures were taken from my dad's digital camera or nothing sadly. So Silent Minister played the old classics from my Samurai Sorcerers tenure, figuring I had a legacy in another band before I joined the Silent Minister Band not only as a guitarist and singer but as a solo artist. The 2005 Asian live tour I did with Minister was fun, because I got to spend lots of time with my relatives in Hong Kong and relax like I actually was on vacation before playing a show onstage before a small audience at a Japanese sushi bar or whatever! In a place where most HK kids do their shopping, the Mong Kok district I mean. But that was the only live tour I ever done in quite some time.
- Screen name:
- silent_minister
- Member since:
- Nov 20 2005
- Active over 1 month ago
- Level of commitment:
- Committed
Influences
As of now, I've been looking at places to get my music. Either on websites to find local bands or use Morpheus to download crap from bands and albums I'm dying to here. I don't go on iTunes to pay a buck to download a song from the Stones because I think that's crazy. But some bands that I've been really digging into on my CD player lately are Lillix, John Lennon, Black Sabbath, the Ramones, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Guns N' Roses, my friend Keith's old band EDEN<>CELL, my friend Jack's band Gen-So(Fantasia), George Clinton & Pariliament, Robert Johnson, U2, Prince, The Rolling Stones, Heart, Motley Crue, and also the Sorcerers. Not to be conceited, but I enjoy listening to what the Sorcerers done every now and then and its still refreshing in a sense because it's my own music and musicians and bands who make their own music should like the stuff they make, or else they're not true to their art. But I listent to lots and lots blues, rock and roll, funk and reggae. Counting the 400 CDs in my collection which I got from the shop.
EQUIPMENT
Cheap guitar rig, cheap recording equipment in my studio, anything cheap because I am poor.
