Paul Graves
Paul Graves was born on April 9th 1961 and started playing guitar at 12 years old after showing an interest to learn to play and from the encouragement from both his parents, his father being a college art instructor and his mother a musician and writer, the early 70s were a musically explosive time and Paul liked what he heard from the guitar and started learning everything he could about it, although he liked rock and roll guitar he also liked different styles of music and the sound the guitar could make to produce them, he started playing in various teenage garage bands throughout the 70s, and graduated from high school in 1979, that was the year Paul really started to take the guitar more seriously, and kept practicing and listening and learning playing by ear what he heard, and was determined to develop his own style.
After high school Paul continued practicing the guitar, and one day met some guys in a local band and he soon became there light guy, the guitar players became some of Paul's mentors, Brad Jones a GIT grad in particular really inspired Paul's playing and Paul moved to Seattle with the band in 1983 after they got professional management and were one of the very early bands that were recording their own original music before the Seattle scene came later in the decade, Paul was taking note of all this and continued to woodshed and hone his guitar skills.
After moving back to Wenatchee after a year in Seattle he joined his first professional working band "River City" as lead guitarist, the band played throughout eastern Washington, playing for over two years with the band, and experiencing his first recording session in a studio.
After River city Paul moved on to play in a number of other local working bands that he started or joined including "Dealer Ace", and "Rockfall", playing at the large number of clubs that were around at the time that provided live music.
In 1986 he moved to Phoenix AZ. For a year and played in a band with a friend from Wenatchee they called "The Pack", writing a few songs and experiencing a big city music scene was great experience for Paul.
Moving back to Wenatchee in 1987 he was more than ever determined to start a new original band , he soon started to hear things about Seattle bands and the new sound coming from there and the Pacific northwest and knew that he was a part of that having been born in Seattle and living in the Northwest most of his life , the first band in 1988-89 was "Empire" with the new bass player (Rick St. Clair from Dallas Texas ) Paul started writing more songs and Rick and Paul started the experimental band "Green Bridge" throughout 1990 and 1991 .
Then one day Paul's bass player Rick got a call from his friend Dave Abrusseze from Dallas who said he just joined a band in Seattle called "Pearl Jam" they had never heard of the band but he had two tickets for Paul and Rick to see the group at the Moore theater in Seattle, they went and the show blew Paul away it was like all the music I grew up loving came back to him, after being fed up with the 1980's music this concert reopened the possibilities of what Paul could do with his music and was the birth night of his new band "Moss Dog", they also met their future drummer (Lance Lemming) at the show that night also.
Part of the early 90's northwest sound was being able to do anything and play any style and fuse it together to make your own sound, Paul never wanted to be tied down to a particular genre, music is a exploration journey, that's why Paul loved bands like Led Zeppelin and later Pearl Jam,those bands could do anything but still be themselves. Life is like that also, you have lows and highs, loud and soft and I like to be able to reflect that in my music.
"Moss Dog" started out as a five piece band and released their first demo (Dirty face) in early 1992, including the rare "Mountains", and played their first show with guitar legend Ronnie Montrose's band "Gamma", soon after they became a three piece with Paul on guitar and vocals, Rick St. Clair bass and vocals, and Lance Lemming on drums , with their own sound the band got a record deal from CM records out of Seattle and soon worked on recording their first album simply titled "Moss Dog", the record was well received in the press and got great reviews throughout the country, they toured in Washington and Oregon, they recorded their second album "Midnight forest run" at Seattle's "Ironwood studios", and one track at the Seattle art institute in early 1996.
"Wooly Bugger" was the next band in 1999, releasing a four song demo, and playing a number of shows.
Paul continued to write and record material and learn different styles on the guitar.
Sometime around 2003 he met Dean Dewee's a trumpet player who had played with the Laurence Welk band and they soon started the band "Cabin Fever" along with Dean's other two brothers Ray Dewee's (piano) and Rodger Dewee's (drums), and Bill Allyn (bass) the band was a very special band, graced with Ray Dewee's virtuoso honky-tonk Piano, and Dean on trumpet, Paul learned a lot from some of the old guard musicians and opened up a lot of new music for Paul, and he really enjoyed playing with the band, the band recorded a 22 song album and a couple of videos, they played until the death of Ray in early 2011.
July 2011 "True Giants" are born in a way part of this band came full circle, as Paul's longtime friend Craig Bromiley and Paul had recorded and played together off and on for over 20 years, with Paul Graves on guitar and vocals Craig on guitar and vocals, longtime friend Don Bales on bass, and longtime friend Paul Mares on drums and backup vocals, completes the lineup.
True Giants from the beginning had that real spark and rare chemistry, and it shows through their love of music, and are recording songs for a album at the present time, most of the material is very spontaneous and the songs are recorded live then they build on them from there, True Giants isn't about being tied down to one genre but pulling from all the music we grew up on and music we love to create a mosaic of our ideas and songs to give us our own sound and inter-operation of what is around us. Paul is also recording some of his solo material that he has had written over the years with the band, Paul's guitar style and sound is very much his own and his playing is fused with a lot of feeling and emotion, and his beautiful song writing ability to give the song the best guitar part it deserves.
