Exclusive Interview with Ed Roman
An earthy, funky, magical collection of “thinking man’s” songwriting in the vein of Frank Zappa, Dave Matthews, Bob Dylan, and Billy Joel
[Sponsored by Exposed Vocals]
Check out our Exclusive Interview with Ed below:
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
Ed: I heard about you from my manager Michael Stover @MTS management
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Ed: Born and raised into sociopolitical UFO farming cult in the township of Markham in the regional municipality of York in the province of Ontario Canada. I wanted to become an artist because people used to seem to have great respect for them, their abilities and get recharged as a human with music. I struggled with dyslexia so for me it was very easy to play music instead of reading and writing..
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Ed: Very easily. It’s my name. Ed Roman
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Ed: I think online music sharing is one of the worst things that is happened to the music industry. It’s basically collapsed any kind of economic system that ever existed as far as music is concerned. It’s become most difficult for artists to make any money from what they actually produce.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Ed: Try and find someone that band or artist relates to. This could be a fan or friend of the band that is into the music that can represent you in a professional way. This goes along way to keeping up the business persona that many people respect in the industry.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Ed: Everybody makes mistakes and it’s a natural thing as a human being. This is what makes the show real. You can learn from your mistakes and at the same time keep making them in order to carve a new path into the moment.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Ed: Yes I just got off tour in New York City and Philadelphia. There are many crazy things that always happen on tour and some of them are illegal to talk about, but quite often you’ll find me wondering the streets late at night singing to myself or anybody that will listen to me.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Ed: The usual songwriting process is that there is no songwriting process. Inspired by the moment when it occurs I take the liberty in that moment to write down my thoughts and ideas to put them into action. This can occur at any moment in time anywhere and any place. The important thing is that I follow the path that is being shown to me.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Ed: www.edroman.net is the place where you can always find me. You can also hook up through my social networking buttons at that location like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and SoundCloud.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Ed: Music is so subjective so what one person might find embarrassing someone else may enjoy. What someone might enjoy others absolutely despise..
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Ed: Give $400,000 of it away to people that actually in needed and are struggling in different parts of the world. Build wells, schools… I’d keep 50,000 for myself to be able to perpetuate my musical existence and record my new album. The other 50,000 I would contribute to small-town artistic organization like fall fares and summer festivals that are in dire need of help.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Ed: Got the studio running like a well oiled machine at the moment. Area 51 is one of the most comfortable exclusive studios north of Highway 89 in the province of Ontario. Just most recently embarked on a recording project to be released in the spring of 2016 entitled “RED OMEN”.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Ed: Putting as many pictures of my vegetables on my webpages as I can. People don’t seem to want to see the end result, they want to see the process. This is a byproduct of the voyeuristic society that we’ve all been trained to live in. If I talk about what I’m doing musically I may get 5 to 10 likes on the Facebook page. If I post something related to my vegetables I inevitably getting 1800 likes which then in turn may steer people towards my artistic endeavours..
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Ed: Carlos Santana would be pretty sweet. Live at the Hollywood bowl. The Hollywood bowl would be a great place to push out a spiritual concert considering it’s in the heart and mecca of a corrupt entertainment industry. Might do some good. If not it would be a hell of a lot of fun.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Ed: As I mentioned I’ve been starting a new project called RED OMEN. Another in-depth looked into the psychological, emotional and sociopolitical day and age that we live in.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Ed: Be in jail..
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Ed: My grandmother gave me five dollars when I went with her to hairdressing appointment back in 1975. There was a little camera store next-door to the hairdresser that sold a variety of vinyl records and I bought Meet The Beatles.. Still have that vinyl album today. What I could remember from the experience was that it seemed to be angelic, beautiful and full of power and charisma. It’s the same feeling I got when I saw Gordon Lightfoot perform at the age of five years old. Performing the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald only 10 feet away from me. I was stupefied. Like an Electric Church
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Ed: Insomnia….
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?
Ed: Seeing that 2015 is already passed in a bigger part of it’s dimension I would say to look forward to things in the spring of 2016 and a new album entitled “RED OMEN”
