Photo courtesy of the Ken Oak Band

Rockin' the cello
Joe Nguyen, editor
April 25, 2007
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Photo courtesy of the Ken Oak Band Ed Gorski and Ken Oak will perform April 26 at The Bean Cycle in Fort Collins.

Instead, he moved out and became a solo artist. According to the band’s website, Oak lived in northern Virginia where he worked at a nonprofit dot-com by day and wrote songs at night. After attaining some recognition on the independent level, he said his father became much more supportive.

When MySpace.com launched, Oak said he used it to reach a broader fan base.

“I think any independent artist will tell you that (the Internet) is a huge part of their ability to reach people,” he said.

In 2004, a mutual friend who was visiting Los Angeles introduced Oak to Gorski. After playing some shows together, the band went on its first self-booked national tour in fall 2005, according to its website.

This past October the band released its latest album, Vienna to Venice. Oak said they wrote many of the songs on the road while they were traveling.

“The title of it comes from where I started playing open mic night in Virginia to where we’re playing now on Third Street in Venice (Calif.),” Oak said.

Now the band looks forward to its future. Oak said they have approximately half an album’s worth of new material. And when they have enough money, they’ll begin laying down the tracks.

“One of the big goals is to get signed to a major (label),” Oak said, “hopefully within the year. We’ll see what happens.”

But for now the band continues to play on and enjoy what they are doing. Quite different from a reality they could be living.

“I’d probably be a lawyer and not enjoying my job very much,” Oak said with a chuckle. “(But) I’d probably have the full car and money for weekends."

The Ken Oak Band will be playing at 7 p.m. April 26 at The Bean Cycle, 144 North College Ave., Fort Collins, 80524.

For more information on the Ken Oak Band, visit their official website at http://www.kenoakband.com or their MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/kenoakband.

Joe Nguyen is the editor in chief for AsiaXpress.com. Joe can be reached at Joe@asiaxpress.com.