Biography

Jan Diabelez Arent Harries was born 12. January 1969 A.D. - and since his 2nd year of life he's been extremely interrested in music.

(photo: - father has 3 guitars, and this one seems to be the best one!)

From this early on, he did like most other musically interrested children - he grabbed every instrument he saw, to see if it had the qualities he searched for. First there was a mouth accordion - great instrument. Everyone can play it, but few can master it. Then there was a kazoo - everyone can play, but only 1 tone comes out. (at a time)

At the age of 5 he was given an accordion, a regular draw-and-push one with keys, pearl-marble-look coating and all. He played with it for a few years, until suddenly one day it was to small for him - the leather strap to put around his neck was too short, the keys were to small for his fingers - and so, it was put away in his closet - where it remains even today.

Years later, at the age of 13 - he finally had the brains needed to try an electric guitar. He had tried his father's guitars many times earlier, but it was first now that he understood how they worked. In the school a band was formed. Henrik Lykkegård - drums, Pernille Madsen - piano, Dennis Harries - electric bass, Jan Harries - electric guitar. The band lived for around 6 months, and gave 1-2 public performances, in school.

While this went on, Jan began to take violin lessons every thursday after school. It was extremely expensive, $9.5 per 20 minutes. He fondly remembers one evening in 1988, where he had visitors from Germany (Remo & Chess of TST) - It just so happened they didn't like his piss-drunk violin-concerto, that they had to force it out of his hands to make him stop playing! :-)

It was his grandfather, Sigurd Arent Harries (1915-1994), who had inspired him to try the violin. Sigurd was a carpenter, and a skilled violinist himself. A few times he had repaired his own violin from devastating blows to its delicate structure - he said this had greatly improved its sound.

Jan believed him, but denied him the pleasure of smashing his violin, with the purpose of afterwards repairing it - because it had belonged to his great-great grandfather who supposedly had bought it on a trip to Italy.

The violin is more than 100 years old, and has clear traces of once being the home of one, possibly hundreds of woodworms.







In 1985, aged 16 - Jan bought a Commodore 64 home-computer. At first it was used for playing games - then he discovered that some games had stunning music playing inside them. He was fascinated!, and started to investigate.

In 1986 he started in highschool, and with the growing pressure of homework, and his growing interrest in the C64 computer - he stopped playing the violin. He had discovered that the computer could be used like a real piano, to compose music on; his 'dream' had come true.

The music he heard from the C64 wasn't really all that exiting at first. It was first when he heard a melody from the game "One Man & His Droid", made by a guy called Rob Hubbard, that he really understood the potential of this computer.

There was a lot of different programs that allowed him to make his own music, but there wasn't any way to present the music made with these programs, because he couldn't program the computer, yet.

In the next 3.5 years he learned how to make programs on the C64, and was able to publish his own music, using his own presentations, demos. Demos in which he would also try to burn his name into the brains of those watching them, so that they may never forget.

The complete Commodore 64 musicdemos etc. by Jan, can be found at Commodore Scene DataBase

In this period (1985-1988), he developed a mania and a skill - to take out the music from all C64 games, and store them away in a safe place, so that they may never be lost. In 1996 all his efforts and fate, turned into the High Voltage SID Collection, an endless project that lives now since 12 years. HVSC

In 1988, Jan bought a Commodore Amiga 500 home-computer.

This computer has the ability, to play back sounds, recorded from the real world. Today such sounds are commonly known as 'samples'.
Actually the C64 can also do this, but it has only 1 'channel', allowing it to play only 1 sample at a time.

The music software for the Amiga was poor in the beginning, but in 1987 - a guy called Karsten Obarski invented a music-program called 'Soundtracker'.

The main reason for Jan to spend his entire savings on buying this computer (one year later), was its potential as a musical instrument.

From mid 1988 to 1996 - he made many different pieces of music using the Amiga and the latest progressed version of Karsten Obarski's 'Soundtracker', now called 'Protracker', cloned by various other programmers.

In 1991 he bought his first synthesizer, a second synth was acquired, and ever since he has been trying to get the necessary instruments, but the computers remain the heart of his studio.

He then in 1996 bought a PC, to be able to use the now most advanced clone of the 'Soundtracker', namely the 'Fasttracker II' made by Triton Productions.

2000 saw the birth of his first real album, and since it's still not really released, he hopes to remaster it and get it out, so that more people can enjoy it.

2005 saw the birth of Jan's first musicdisk on Commodore 64, SID Expander. After doing only sporadic music on the C64 since 1988, 15 years had passed, and he wrote 10 tunes in 2 months, programmed the demo, and it was a very different sound, compared to the 80s tunes.

Jan composes nearly every style of music, or rather; he mixes together his sources of inspiration, and acts as a personal filter.

His greatest dream, is to score a Hollywood movie. His favorite orchestra composer, was Jerry Goldsmith, who passed away in 2004.
However; as he don't read/write traditional sheet music (notes), going to Hollywood might be a problem. The demands are very high, and the orchestra NEEDS sheet music. BUT!   ofcourse, conversion from the computer score to notes, is possible - so let's hope! :-)

This homepage has been set up on the Internet to publish his music, old as new. To save it for generations to come, and to act as an inspiration to other digital musicians who do the same as him - Soundtracking.



updated 2008-09-01