Daniel Park

When Daniel Park’s parents insisted on private violin lessons for him at age seven, he might have anticipated the success he achieved playing in his middle and high school orchestras. But the South Korea born, New Mexico raised performer hardly realized just how dynamically his skills on the instrument would mesh with his ultimate development as a rocker in the popular regional bands Live Bait and Kiss To Betray and now, his emergence as a powerful and emotional singer/songwriter in his own right. On his debut album These Illusions, Park plays violin and acoustic guitar in addition to reaching out to acoustic rock fans everywhere with his inimitable vocals. Because of the mostly personal nature of the songs, the compelling 11-track collection rolls like a fascinating chronology of the 27-year-old singer’s life, beginning with tunes he wrote when he was an engineering student at New Mexico State in his now adopted hometown of Las Cruces. He was also building his catalog of songs as he played violin and contributed backing vocals for several years in two well known regional bands: the mostly cover band Live Bait and the “screamo” metalcore/hardcore group Kiss To Betray. Playing in Live Bait, his violin came in very handy for those Dave Matthews songs and it helped him take songs like Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” to a transcendent level. Live Bait won the local college radio station KRUXFEST for “Best New Alternative Band” in 2005 and Kiss To Betray won the Las Cruces 2006 Battle of the Bands and later played at well known venues around the country like Headhunters in Austin, The Viper Room in L.A. and hotspots in Phoenix. As a solo artist, Park has since headlined regularly at local clubs like El Patio Bar and Hurricane Alley, the Albuquerque haunts the Launch Pad and Rally’s Pub on 4th Street, and in Lubbock, Texas, Phoenix and even Colorado Springs. He recently posted two live performance videos on his myspace (myspace.com/danielparkmusic), one of which features his unique looping technique which allows him to play violin and guitar “simultaneously” on the same song. While Park enjoyed his time in Live Bait and Kiss To Betray and the notoriety he received as a featured performer, in some ways he felt he was always gearing up for his eventual breakthrough to the forefront as his own artist. In the months leading up to the breakup of Kiss To Betray, Park gathered his best material, entered what kiddingly refers to as “a local ghetto studio” and started to come to grips with These Illusions. While many of the tracks on the album have their roots in romantic relationships, the hypnotic and percussive, acoustic guitar driven title cut cuts to the core of his desire to find his own creative path in life—even if it means going against the mainstream expectations of our society. Other songs tap slightly into his lifelong search for identity as an Asian born man adopted (along with two of his siblings) by a white American family. Other key tracks on These Illusions include the jangling, high energy “Times Have Changed,” which laments the shift in life as his significant other chooses to move on. The graceful, easy strumming ballad “What We Should Be” is another heartbreaker about learning to accept the changes in a relationship when one person leaves to pursue his or her dreams—while still celebrating the memories. Park spins a different perspective .., going even deeper and more introspective .. in Me,” a song about a man who hits rock bottom and realizes his need to adjust his course. "Daniel Park has distilled what it is to be a singer songwriter in the late oughts, and in doing this, has created a blueprint that every individual with an acoustic guitar and a microphone should follow for the next decade." - James @ NeuFutur.com www.danielparkmusic.com