Seriously…   I’ve been using the term “Traditional Folk Metal” to describe my music since the late 1980’s.

In 1990 I began sending cassette tapes full of original songs recorded by myself on a Fostex 4-tracker (under the guise of “Rodgman”) to people I knew.

But once I came to really know Jesus Christ in 2001, I threw all of that stuff away, and started fresh by writing songs for Him and His Kingdom; mainly from the text of the Bible (realizing that what I have to say is far less important than I once thought it was, but that God’s Word is the most important – exceedingly and abundantly so).

Every so often one of those old “Rodgman” songs would resurface in my mind and I’d realize that I could carefully rewrite it to glorify and praise the Lord.  (He makes all things new!)

In 2003 my wife, Laura, and I began leading children’s worship at a church with an amazingly gifted pianist named Mark Oda.  After a few months, I mentioned to Mark that I had some original songs and he said he would love to hear them.  By early 2004 we were playing them at coffeehouses and various other functions, and by early 2007 we were singing them at the Syracuse Rescue Mission where we were leading worship every Wednesday night at the weekly Chapel Service.

The coffeehouse band was called “What Then?” and featured the Children’s/Rescue Mission Worship Team of myself, Laura and Mark, and included various other musicians over the years.  The What Then? recordings on this website were resurrected from cassette tapes and live-from-the-board recordings which I “remastered” merely by adjusting the EQ as best as I possibly could.

As the years rolled by I had a continuing desire to get the rest of my songs properly recorded so that I could share them as well.  God has always provided for us, so I have never (well, since 2001) felt the need to make money from my music.  I am very thankful to Him for that, and I greatly respect anyone who earns their living by writing, recording, and performing music.

Anyway, in 2016 my family bought me a Q8 Zoom camera for my birthday with which I could make audio recordings.  However, I can’t overdub on it, so instead I have relished the challenge of performing these songs completely live.  When I started recording, I realized that the keyboard Laura had purchased for us several years before (when the kids were homeschooling) had lots of pre-programmed drum sounds built in, and so I started incorporating those too, even re-structuring some of the songs a bit to match the drum sounds that were coming out of the keyboard (intros and endings for the most part).

Therefore, Traditional Folk Metal would now be defined as:

“A solo performance of carefully crafted songs played, sung, and recorded completely live by one person with an acoustic guitar and often with (factory) pre-programmed drum sounds.  The sound, the songs, and the playing are specifically designed so that the listener can enjoy them despite the lack of additional instrumentation or soloing.”  

This is Traditional Folk Metal…