U.S. born, Israeli-raised guitarist/songwriter Ethan Brosh is excited to be hitting the road later this spring to tour in support of his new album, Conspiracy, which was released independently on Feb. 16. And far from trying to curry favour from the Canadian writer of this article, he expressed a genuine and deeply held fondness and appreciation for the music fans of Canada and can’t wait to play the new tunes for them.
“Canada has always been really good to us. It’s something that I didn’t expect the first time that I got to play in Canada. It was in Toronto at the Phoenix Concert Theatre and we [The Ethan Brosh Band] was opening for Yngwie Malmsteen [in 2014-2015] and right off the bat the reaction was just so good. Every other time we played in Canada since then has been really great – Toronto has almost been like a second home to us. We have a lot of fans and good friends there and we love playing at the Rockpile also. It’s just such a great spot for rock and roll. We feel at home there,” said Brosh, who lives in Boston, but did the interview from his hotel room in California, where he was attending the recent NAMM Convention.
“And on the last tour there we were out with Uli Jon Roth and we played in Quebec City and it was one of the best shows that I ever played in my whole life. People were so loud and so into it and you can see they are true rockers. We enjoyed every second of it. We have always been treated very nicely by Canadians. And now we’re going to be playing Montreal for the very first time on this new tour and all of us are very much looking forward to it.
“And it also looks like we’re going out west in Canada and doing a bunch of shows in cities I have never been to like Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. I am excited to see those cities. There’s also something special about going to a different country, even though Canada is just next to the United States. Even though it’s right next door, it’s still a different country and a different atmosphere. And we don’t take our welcome for granted. Nowadays is not the best time for rock music in general so when I go to Canada and I see people really into it, it really warms my heart.”
What also warms his heart is the fact that he is proud of the time and effort and creative energy spent on his new album. Conspiracy is his third full-length album but his first where everything was done independently, which factored in the nearly three-year gap between it and his previous album, Live the Dream, which was released on drum legend Carmine Appice’s Rocker Records label.
“Now when you think of three years, it’s not like I was sitting at home and making the album for three years. I have been doing a lot of touring as well as one-off shows and all kinds of other things. But it also took me longer because I had to write it and because its my own solo instrumental album and the fact that I am releasing it myself, everything is on me. I literally have to do everything, although I do have people helping me with some things, I still have to be a part of the process every step of the way, from writing drum and bass parts for the other musicians to approving the graphic design and setting up the distribution and all those things,” he said, adding that some of his time was taken up with his popular Bon Jovi tribute band, which plays throughout New England, as well as performing as a sideman for the band Steelheart as well as Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin on some of their recent tours.
While Conspiracy is an instrumental album, it is still imbued with the emotional depth and complexity as well as the dynamics of any album with vocals. Brosh says he doesn’t approach his songwriting, particularly his instrumental rock writing, looking to impress people with his fretboard dexterity or speed of shredding, but by trying to craft melodically memorable songs.
“I put a lot of attention and a lot of emphasis on melody. It’s really the main thing. And I only use my absolute best melodies. I can come up with a lot of melodies but only when I feel that I have hit a home run, that’s when I will say, okay that’s a great melody and something I can build on. My instrumental music, as opposed to all the other shred records if you will, is very focused on songwriting. And every tune has very defined sections that you can really hear – an intro, a chorus, a bridge for example – and you can tell what it is. And you can very often sing along with the melody. Of course there will be solo sections and moments where the pyrotechnics happen but its always within the context of the song,” he explained.
“All my tunes are very different from one another. So, track one is completely different to track three. I have said this many times in the past, when you make an instrumental record, it’s very easy to bore the listener out of their minds. I try really hard to look at the whole album as a unit and I want all the parts of it to be different so that people will not get bored and so it will be something cool and interesting with a lot of different elements and styles.”
New songs come primarily from Brosh noodling around on his guitar, waiting to see if that home run idea comes along. When lightning does strike, he said he quickly records at least the germ of that idea, so it’s not forgotten.
“It usually happens with me playing and if I am lucky enough, something will just spark out of nowhere. And If I feel something is sounding really good, I will record it quickly. Or I will sit there at the point and try to work out the rest of the tune. I have found that those things happen fast when they happen, but you can never force them. But as I said, getting that melody is the important thing,” he explained.
“And if I like it and record it, I want the listeners to think that the songwriting was good enough to keep them interested and that some of those melodies will still play in the back of their minds. If I manage to do that, that’s what I am looking for. It’s really music for the sake of music, it’s as simple as that. If people listen to it and they really enjoy it and they think the song is great or the production is great, and they crank it up and if it makes them feel good, that’s really all I want.”
Born in New York State, Brosh moved with is family to Israel when he was a little over one year old. He only returned to the United States in his late teens to study at the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston, where he continues to reside. As a kid, he found himself entranced by the intricate compositional stylings and lush melodies of Bach, thanks to a dad who held a deep appreciation for classical music.
“My dad is not a musician, but he’s got a great ear and he is a big fan of classical music. So that is the first music that I ever got to hear, and the Bach pieces immediately caught my attention as a little kid. There were a lot of other classical pieces and symphonies that sounded okay to me, but they didn’t really grab me like Bach did. And once I heard them, I knew I wanted to be a musician,” he said.
“I started playing piano at eight years old and I wasn’t quite ready for it. I had an old woman as a teacher and she was kind of a hard ass and it just wasn’t a good experience, so I just quit and was kind of jaded about music for a while.”
But, it wasn’t long until a music with more power, volume and hard rockin’ attitude gripped young Brosh, particularly the epic metal being unleashed by Iron Maiden in the early 1980s. Interestingly, it wasn’t the music that first turned the youngster on to the band.
“I found out about Iron Maiden because of their mascot Eddie on the cover and all the cool artwork I was seeing. I used to have Iron Maiden t-shirts before I even started listening to the band when I was a kid because I thought they were the coolest t-shirts in the store. But then I started listening to them and I really liked the music and the sound. At the time I hadn’t really ever heard an electric guitar, but by about age 12 I had decided I wanted to play guitar and that’s really where it all started,” he said, adding that other early influences included George Lynch, Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) and Jake E. Lee, while newer influences are the likes of Jason Becker, jazz fusion master Scott Henderson, fingerstyle expert Tommy Emmanuel and the flamenco stylings of Vincente Amigo and Paco de Lucia.
After studying at Berklee, Brosh played in a number of bands, and soon became an in-demand studio musician and live performer, working alongside the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen, former Ozzy guitarist Jake E. Lee, Joe Lynn Turner, Eddie Money, George Lynch (Dokken, Lynch Mob), Megadeth’s Dave Ellefson and prog-rock legend Greg Howe, among others. He released his first solo album, Out of Oblivion in 2009 on Magna Carta Records, which featured album art by Derek Riggs (who also did the art for the Conspiracy release), and which was mixed by Chris Tsangarites, who passed away just a couple of months ago.
Brosh elevated his profile within the music industry and with rock fans after appearing on the most recent solo album by Michael Sweet [Stryper, Sweet & Lynch, Boston] One Sided War, which came out in 2016.
“I actually met Stryper drummer Oz Fox first years ago and he introduced me to Michael, because I kept going to see Stryper shows. And at one point Michael said to me, ‘you know, I want you in my solo band.’ And this was an idea that he had for a long time, but it never came to fruition because he was always so busy with Stryper and other projects. And then when he started working on One Sided War, he just texted me and asked if I would play on that record, and I was like, ‘hell yeah,’” Brosh said.
“We were both living in Massachusetts and there are very few people who were into that kind of music in Massachusetts. There are very few people around Boston that are interested in that style of hard rock and heavy metal playing, so you’re pretty much bound to meet all the people in that small scene. So, I played on the record and did a couple of music videos for it and they are apparently still working on some tour dates for that project as well. The whole Michael Sweet experience was really good. I loved working with him, he’s a very, very nice guy and an insanely talented musician and songwriter.”
Which could also be a way of describing Brosh himself, who believes he is at or near the peak of his creative powers and wants to keep releasing new music at an exceptionally high standard as long as he can, even if there isn’t a lot of revenue to be generated from the direct sale of music these days.
“I don’t really get what the music industry is any more. I don’t know what is the right way of approaching it. I don’t know if one should put out singles, or just EPs and albums. I don’t know what the right thing to do is. But I have always been a very old-school kind of guy and to me it just seems to make sense to release full albums. I ignore what the industry is about, and I just do what I want to do. But even just for the sake of live shows, you’ve got to have music. You’ve got to go out there and play your own material, and at some point, that material is going to get old, so you’ve got to go get more material. You’ve got to do something new so that people don’t forget you. Plus, people want to see you doing something that is happening right now and not talking about something you did 10 years ago,” he said.
Conspiracy is definitely music that will stand the test of time and adds lustre to Brosh’s already sterling reputation as a guitar player and composer. And with the artistic fire still burning very brightly in his soul and spirit, one can only imagine what musical masterpieces are yet to spring forth from his fertile creative mind.
For more information on Brosh, Conspiracy and his upcoming tour dates, visit www.ethanbrosh.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
