Born and raised in Newport, Pronto first found his musical voice as the front man in the rock band Foozle, which legend has it was banned from a bar in Waitsfield for playing “Free Bird” for 90 minutes straight.
Still keeping it real, and having come a long way in his career since then, Pronto continues to work with local musicians he has collaborated with over the years. His new album is being recorded locally, and many of the songs were written here in the Northeast Kingdom over the last four years.
The new album is also a very personal one for Pronto, because although it is a project he has been working on since 2010, some of the songs on it go back to 2003, to a point in his career where he was recording in Nashville. Back then the focus was often on writing hits, sometimes for other artists, and not always strictly for himself.
He says that although some of the songs on It Can’t All Be Wrong were written years ago in Nashville, this 10-song album was penned mostly for himself, exploring themes we all go through in our lives.
“The excitement of new love, the despair of ending relationships, self esteem building, soul searching and self worth, flash backs to younger days, the realization that no matter what, my guitar is always there, and of course a 1974 Dodge Dart,” he said, listing a few of the subjects we can expect to hear him explore in his music.
Pronto tends to write music in his living room, but it has happened before that a song will come to him out of nowhere, once forcing him to sing the lyrics into his voice memo phone app so he wouldn’t forget it while driving down the road.
“You have to capture the ideas when they come to you,” Pronto said. “It almost always starts with a melody in my head and I usually don’t know what the subject of the song will be until I have written the chord progression, and it comes to me as I hum the melody. Most of my songs only take me about 15 minutes to write the lyrics and then a few weeks to fine tune everything.”
It Can’t All Be Wrong will be mixed professionally in Los Angeles, so that it has that clear, crisp sound and punch you hear from songs on the radio. As he puts it, “still very real and not overly processed. You can feel the music.”
The album combines a wide variety of music from rock, alt-country, folk, power pop, and even a dance type song called, “The Devil Will Never Win.”
But before the album is able to be completed, Pronto is seeking the help of his fans, and members of the community, through a fundraising campaign he started on IndieGoGo.
He has this to say for anyone who may be interested in helping him bring this long-awaited album to fruition:
I guess the biggest thing I want to convey is that I am really proud of this album and that the reason it has taken so long to finish is that it was all done very carefully and proper. It is easy to just record on a laptop these days on Audacity or some program you download but to give the songs the proper punch so it sounds like all the big time people on the radio it is best to leave the mix up to a professional. And, it is not cheap…but boy can you hear the difference and it is totally worth it in the long run.
So I have dropped $3K of my own money on this in the last 3 years and with the help I receive from this campaign the album will be out by spring the latest. Without it, it may not happen…or it may not happen for another year. So I am grateful to anyone that can help me no matter how small and to anyone that helps share the IndieGoGo link. It is so much fun to involve people in this process and it is something I am glad I tried.
If you would like to learn more about this project, visit the IndieGoGo Page.
