#15- STEFFEN SCHACKINGER

Steffen Schackinger was born in the 11th of August of 1973, in the capital of Fyn, Odense, Denmark. He started out on the violin as a kid, and moved on to cello and classical piano. With the classical and electric guitar he finally found his right instrument.

He was the second child of soon-to-be-divorced parents. His mother pursued a teaching and university career, while his father played as 1st french hornist in the Odense Symphony Orchestra. His care was entrusted to various au pair girls. From 3 years old he was promoted to nursery school, not always a congenial place. In the ´70s children were expected to be gregarious, while he seemed to prefer the company of plants and trees, to which he would talk. His mother was daily alarmed by reports of his failure to play with more than one child at a time. Left comparatively alone he did not much mind the place. By then he had long known the joys of pure passion, having fallen violently in love with a pretty baker´s assistant in the local shop center. When entering the shop he would hide under his mother´s coat, clinging to her in the presence of those brown eyes which made him dizzy. One day Browneyes presented him with a small bun, kindly telling him that she liked little boys; in fact she had one of her own at home. He left the shop in tears but dark eyes ever remained a great attraction.

Music, besides brown eyes, attracted him greatly. Steffen attended his father´s concerts, falling in love with classical music. And sometimes falling asleep. Toy cars too were his delight. He would set them out in the garden on a starched paper napkin. The blackbirds seemed to be singing all the year round, though occasionally one would be found dead and be mourned.

School began and, together with his sister, he attended a private day school which proved a disaster. It had been chosen to save the two of them from any single-parent stigma but the head teacher, who was also the owner, was a man who could not resist bullying the fatherless. One day he knocked the boy off a chair for having forgotten to bring his recorder. They never set foot there again, a less classy and kinder state school being found for them.

He was nine and life was looking up: His former teacher offered to teach some pupils the guitar. He was given a fine acoustic guitar and never really looked back. Before the guitar, he had played the fiddle for a while, and the piano, which remains with him. Later the cello, Greek bouzouki and Indian sitar were added.

There were a few friends, one in particular with whom he explored dangerous places in nearby woods. They rode their bicycles down near-vertical slopes, feeling immortal. After one particularly nasty accident he realized that wasn't his thing, and visits to the emergency ward became less frequent.

A CD player was acquired and he discovered rock music. Mark Knopfler´s playing impressed him deeply. So did Jimi Hendrix with his wild and untamed guitar. And at this point, Steffen started singing, trying to nail the lyrics of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and other great artists.

School was a piece of cake; it didn´t seem to require much. A really serious electric guitar was acquired; At the age of 13 he started out as a band guitarist, and he soon earned a reputation, as an extraordinary guitarist. The young guitar player was invited to play with several bands. . It felt like flying. Bands roped him in. The years flashed by. He was 15 and suddenly found himself in a country vicarage; his mother having remarried. There were large dogs on the roads when he cycled to school, which was now a sixth-form college. He missed the city and left home at 16 to live in a rented room, while formally still attending school.

But music was his life and, at the age of 17, he won a Danish song contest on national TV with a local band.

As a guitarist in Faber Band, he was invited to sign his first record deal, and he decided to quit high school to concentrate on his music career.

Long, old men´s overcoats were the fashion. He wore one on in the long Danish winters, occasionally meeting his parents in town. Money was thin on the ground and one of his neighbours turned out to be wanted by the police, which Steffen only realized when arriving home late after a recital. He was grabbed by two police officers and urgently forced into a frog-like position while they warned him of his rights. It took him some days to shrug off this episode as a laughing matter. There was a new neighbour, other rooms and flatlets.

On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, a few months off his final exams, having been offered a record contract, he dropped out of school. At that time he started touring Europe with different bands and it was dawning upon him that a spot of formal education might come in useful if he was to have a serious career. He took the entrance exams to the Danish Conservatory of Music.

Practising was now, as always, an important part of his life, and he eventually developed a discipline which resulted in a stable musical development, allowing instrumental skills and creativity to flourish in unison. During Steffen's Conservatory years there were numerous recitals and, a few times, he had to apply for leave in order to tour Europe with various bands. One of those bands was the trio Merzy, which was known for wild and sometimes even outrageous performances. A Rock band with a capital R, Merzy was signed by Iceberg, BMG and EMI Records, in Europe and Asia. MERZY also appeared as a supporting act for ZZ TOP and Deep Purple.

In between touring and playing TV and Radio shows, Steffen sang some of the lead vocals in the band Gracelands and got major airplay on the Danish radio stations with the songs "Electrified", ”Climbing Into Space” and ”Supersonic View”.

In 1998, after Merzy had released 4 albums and countless singles, Steffen got fed up with late night Rock shows all over Denmark and the rest of Europe and decided to quit the band and focus on other music-related adventures. He started playing in a lot of theatre shows, as a musician and as a performer, singing and playing various instruments. In this was, at the time, a whole new world was unfolding and he discovered the many differences between doing live rock gigs and traditional theatre work.

As a freelance musician Steffen is still doing theater shows, plays with symphony orchestras as well as recording workshops and masterclasses.

Steffen is currently involved with the award-winning theatre OIM (Odense International Music Theater). Over the years he has been hired to do clinics and representations of different guitar and effect producers as well as teaching students in different locations at all levels.

As a studio musician, Steffen has recorded numerous albums with different artists and has composed all sorts of music for Danish television shows and commercials. Still his focus was on the growth and development of his guitar playing and he eventually decided to make an album, of which he was to be the sole composer. In this album he plays his true style, not having to compromise with producers and other band members. This was one of many steps that led to the creation of the album ElectriGuitartistry which was composed, recorded, and released in 2007/2008. Before the official release in 2008, Steffen was signed by Candyrat Records in the U.S and Gateway Music in Denmark.

Steffens guitar playing contains elements from rock/hardrock, blues, jazz/fusion and country. He has found inspiration from several of the major guitar heroes – amongst others: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, Robben Ford, Joe Satriani, Allan Holdsworth, Frank Gambale, Bill Frisell, Van Halen, George Benson, Eric Johnson, Frank Zappa, Steve Morse, Steve Vai, Pat Metheny, Albert Lee, Paco De Lucia, John Mcloughlin and Larry Carlton. Furthermore the classic music and composers like Bach, Beethoven, Paganini, Stravinsky and not least Stephen Sondheim have had major influence on the musical development of Steffen Schackinger – as a guitarist and as a composer. " Besides his solo career, Steffen is a member of Christian Baltzers Orkester.

Biography reproduced with the permission of Steffen Schackinger.

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