Dreams of music stardom are just part and parcel of growing up
for many young people. But few rock wannabes can say that they
came as tantalisingly close as Innevape's Jeff Conell.
Inseparable from his guitar from a young age, Jeff was playing
bluegrass festivals with his dad before he'd even reached his teens.
He said: "Learning on an acoustic is like running with weights on and
then you take the weights off when you go to electric, you fly.”
Jeff describes his childhood as 'tumultuous' and just before his 16th
birthday he headed to California to take his first steps towards a
music career.
His band Baddax spent a couple of years in California, generating
buzz and catching the ear of a New York record label owner along the
way. Soon they moved to New York where they started gigging and
a record label contract soon followed. By 1991 they put out their first
CD, 'Somethin' New'.
The six-track EP opened doors and Baddax performed opening
slots for national acts and took part in the MTV Headbangers Ball
Foundations Forum in 1995. But the period was a turning point for
rock music. The long hair and axe-shredding of the past decade gave
way to a slower, more downbeat sound made famous by Nirvana:
grunge. With musical appetites changing, the label began exploring
alternative paths for Baddax to follow. Then, out of the blue, the label
announced that they would be sending the band to Japan to build
some heat. But Jeff couldn't do it. He had a baby on the way.
"I have the wherewithal to make
this the most beautiful project that
I've ever recorded"
"We were driving back from California to Florida when I broke the
news. My drummer, who was a big trunk redneck, ends up getting
drunk on the tour bus. Just bitching, bitching, bitching. We pulled into
a rest area and he just beat the hell out of me."
Jeff was now entering a new reality, one that was not conducive to
late nights and scraps on the tour bus. Things had to change if he was
to be the best man he could be for his family. He put his guitar down,
cut his long hair and killed off his rockstar persona.
"I was 30 years old. I'd never had a bank account. I'd never had a
driver's licence, a car, or a place to rent.
"From 18 I had been on the road with a band and a manager handling
everything. But now I pretty much had to learn how to live like an
adult and pay my own bills." Family life and the ensuing success of
Innevape seemed to spell the end of Jeff's rock music journey. He
was comfortable but very busy and with little time to even think about
creating new music.
But then he was asked to play the Star Spangled Banner at a July 4
convention and caught the bug again. And so he built another studio
and started recording again and uploading tracks to Soundcloud as
Quazzistellar, which is also the name of his new YouTube channel.
"My eldest son said, 'you are a stellar guitarist but right now you're
just not bothered by 'stellar' because you need to get back. It was a
joke. And so then he comes up with this amazing logo that I just had
to run with."
Jeff's skills and passion are clearly resonating with the YouTube
community. He hopes that, through this interaction, he will be able to
put together a new album and reward contributors who inspire him
along the way with huge giveaways of guitars, amps and more.
"I'm determined that at the level I'm at right now maturity wise,
financially and everything else that I have the wherewithal to make
this the most beautiful project that I've ever recorded." The YouTube
project was inspired by Jeff's recent discovery of singer/songwriter
Paul Gilbert and in particular his song, 'I Own a Building'. The song
moved him to tears from the first listen. There were no lyrics, just a
man channelling his emotions through his guitar.
"Something just told me I had to just let it flow. I thought to myself,
'this is like water, like I'm just washing myself off.' So I went in and I
immediately wrote the song, 'Like Water.'
Now, he hopes, Quazzistellar will have an equally transformative
effect on his viewers. The project is as much a collaboration as it is
a personal project. Through the section 'You Too', where viewers can
send in their own videos which Jeff can then put on his channel and
share with the community.
"It's a 10-song album and the tenth song is going to be a community
song. We're going to construct it together and then I'm going to have
guest musicians send them their clips and then all mix their clips into
the song.
"I just need my soul to realise that all these years that I put in my
whole family sacrifice for music and everything else is not for all for
nothing and that I get to share this with other people."
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