Gary Lauzon: Bass, Synth, Bass Pedals

Gary's musical journey started as for most of us, at piano/keyboard classes during his childhood. In grades 7 and 8 he had weekly classes as part of a special program in Junior High school. At this point his teacher and his parents noticed that he had an ear for music. In 1993 on a hot summer day at the cottage he was hanging out with his friend Phil. Phil was fiddling away on an acoustic guitar, all of a sudden he started playing the intro to "The Trees" from Rush which immediately caught Gary's attention. Soon after Phil gave Gary an intro to some chords on guitar. Funded by a job at the dollar store Gary soon bought his first acoustic guitar and started studying with Todd Hodgson, the guitarist from Shadow of Doubt. This encouraged Gary to buy his first electric guitar and amp to start playing with ShadowVale. Over the next few years Gary started experimenting with a classical guitar and really started to work on his American fingerstyle picking technique, also during this time he started giving basic guitar lessons to some friends.

During Gary's high school years, Stephane, one of Gary's buddies bought a bass at a local pawn shop and was really keen on learning, ironically Gary had never touched a bass but became Stephane's bass teacher, teaching him some basic theory and songs that Gary had learned in the process. A few weeks later they were jamming to Metallica's "Orion" and "My Friend of Misery". Stephane commented that Gary had a lot of potential on the bass but Gary preferred to stay on guitar. At some point however Gary felt like he had reached a plateau in his guitar playing and was no longer improving. Out of the blue Gary traded his electric guitar for a bass; just like that he decided he wanted a new challenge to explore his musical abilities. Since he was always more of a rhythm player that really helped on the bass. Gary started playing with some friends in a band and they wrote a few tunes, unfortunately that project never left the ground.

One day the guitarist from that failed project gave Gary a call in early May saying: "We have a gig opportunity next month; we'd be doing strictly covers. Do you think you could handle learning about 20 covers? Everything from the Rolling Stones to Pink Floyd?" Despite his initial trepidation the next day Gary had accepted and the band Réflection ended up doing 2 gigs; one in June and one in July @ Le P'tit Canot in Gatineau.

Again this band fell through the cracks but Gary's good friend Chuck who found David on the Ottawa Musician started playing together some Rebel Wheel material. Gary expressed interest in playing if ever they needed a bass player as he really enjoyed The Rebel Wheel. David sent Gary some tabs for 1 Oz, Gary auditioned and the rest was history. Gary, Chuck and Greg had a few jams in the past while Gary was a guitarist

Gary feels like in about 3 years of bass playing that he's easily surpassed his guitar playing. "I feel much more comfortable on the bass then on the guitar, I'm all about grooves and that's exactly what playing the bass is all about".

Gary is also the main host for Ottawa's La Villa Strangiato which is a proggressive rock/metal show held every Thursday night on CHUO FM, 89.1 from 9:00 PM till 10:30 PM.

Main influences: Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, Jonas Reingold, Cliff Burton, John Myung, Steve Harris, Ray Shulman, and Victor Wooten.