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In 1989, I was looking at close to life in prison, sitting in a Federal cell in the mountains of PA, out in the middle of nowhere. It’s hard to get used to prison life when you’re used to living in the fast lane as a Hells Angel. For the most part, once the other prisoners found out who I was they avoided me because of their fear of the unknown. Because of the patch that I’d worn on the streets, the system watched me that much more. As the saying goes, beware of the smile on their face; they’re not what they seem.
I had to find a way to put myself in a better frame of mind. I’d always loved music and wanted to learn how to play guitar but could never seem to find the time when I was out on the streets. Now I had all the time in the world. Because we weren’t allowed cassettes, CD’s hadn’t been introduced yet and where I was it was impossible to get good radio stations dialed in, (a lot to get used to after being from Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock Capital of the World) I started the process of self-teaching myself the guitar.
I started teaching myself when I was in Lewisburg Federal Correctional Institute, and continued playing for hours every day until my fingers would bleed. Even after being transferred to Beaumont Texas in the Federal System and finally to McKean Federal Correctional Institute, I continued to practice on an average of four hours per day. Family & friends sent me sheet music, and I got subscriptions to Guitar World and Guitar One magazines, which really helped a lot. I had the opportunity to hear some Flamenco. I was fascinated by it, and incorporated that style into my music also.
It wasn’t until 2002 when I got to finally hear a newer cassette from the outside. What a culture shock!!!
A big opportunity presented itself when I got shipped north. We could actually have CD’s. I’d never seen one before. Now we could have our own CD’s and CD players.
I kept trying to play with some of the prison bands but there were no openings. I’d written lots of songs over the years and really had hoped to be able to play them with other musicians. As luck would have it, I ended up sharing space with some other inmates that enjoyed playing and expressing themselves through their music too. Then out of nowhere, the system let us have our own tracking systems in. It was a great opportunity because the people I was playing with had learned a lot of the songs I had written. About that time, to our surprise, tracking systems were actually allowed in. We recorded 15 of the songs I had written. A good friend Steve Hickman was instrumental with vocals; he’s an extremely talented musician, songwriter, and guitarist. His voice is very powerful and helps bring the songs to life. Are’s, Kace & Boston did their parts ..boards, and Enterprise ran the tracking system. With hardly any equipment available to us, we were on a roll with the music. But, as life would have it, only 6 weeks after receiving the tracking system, the System decided they no longer wanted to let us keep the device and I had to send it home.
My wife Lynn, and good friend Jeff Castle listened to the songs when the tracker came home. To my surprise they really felt I had something! Two of the songs still needed lyrics and vocals since the tracker got taken away abruptly and Jeff stepped in to finish the project, adding the vocals and lyrics to Last Ride Home and Sweet, Sweet Cleveland. My wife Lynn, added the keys to Last Man Standing and added back up vocals to Last Ride Home, then the songs were taken to a professional studio, and with the advanced equipment and some tweaking a CD emerged.
It’s name = The Last Ride Home, by Deadly Synz It was hard, but it was meant to be, the obstacles were tremendous. Writing songs comes easy to me, getting my hands on a guitar is the hard thing. Being self-taught for 15+ years, it’s funny the only people I’ve ever been able to play for are prisoners at prison shows. My music is of prison life and memories of life on the streets. Some of the music, you can hear the pain, but there’s so much feeling, of what was before, and what could be tomorrow..........
L/R
Steven Yee..............
EQUIPMENT USED: Shecter Guitar, Classical Ibanez guitar( used for bass guitar ) Yamaha Keyboard (also used for drums) low level Fostex 8 track all tones thru a digitech RP – 50 ft pedal (the best $49.95 investment) all Vocals thru a guitar tuner
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