A GOLDEN QUEST TO PRODUCE A BEDROOM BOY’S BEST

THE ROY GOLDEN BIOGRAPHY

As snow fell on February 10, 1980, Roy Dale Golden, Jr. entered the universe at Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler, Texas, USA.

The first six years of his life were spent in Tyler, a.k.a. the “Rose Capital of the World”–a distinction shared by other notable persons Earl Campbell and Johnny Manziel. It was in Tyler that Roy first became enamored with music, playing the Oak Ridge Boys’ classic Elvira endlessly on a Fisher Price record player, briefly interrupted by a few hours of The Fall Guy‘s theme.

After his mother remarried in 1986, the family moved briefly to Longview, Texas, then made the trek across state lines to Bossier City, Louisiana, home of Barksdale Air Force Base (primary keeper of the B-52 Bomber) in 1987. It was there Roy began a professional singing career when he won $50 at Cope Middle School’s 1994 talent contest with an arousing rendition of Steve Wariner’s “Like a River to the Sea.”

Later that year Roy moved to Natchitoches, Louisiana, site of the film Steel Magnolias starring country music and songwriting legend, Dolly Parton. That summer, Roy began learning guitar and writing songs. During team bus rides on the way to high school football and baseball games, he would listen to CDs such as Bon Jovi’s Keep the Faith, Aerosmith’s Big Ones, Tim McGraw’s All I Want, and Billy Ray Cyrus’s It Won’t Be the Last. The seeds of his sound were sown.

My Junior year of high school I moved back to Tyler, Texas. It was in my birthplace that I began making the rounds at local “Opry” shows and parking lot music showcases, playing songs by George Strait, Meat Loaf, Garth Brooks, and occasionally even a tune by Tonic. Sometimes I would be with a house band. Sometimes it was just me, sparing everyone to death with my guitar…

Upon graduation from Chapel Hill High School in 1998 there was a decision to make:

OPTION 1: ATTEND BAYLOR UNIVERSITY AND MAJOR IN THEATRE (A PROGRAM INTO WHICH I HAD GAINED ACCEPTANCE)

OR

OPTION 2: LEARN SOMETHING I’D ACTUALLY USE IN REAL LIFE

I chose the latter… I am, after all, a practical man. While I was satiating my man-crush on Roger Howarth by watching ABC’s One Life To Live during a late-summer lunch hour, a commercial advertisement came on KLTV/Tyler showcasing a 3D/Computer Animation program at The Art Institute of Dallas (A.I.D). Immediately I was intrigued. After serious inquiry I decided to attend A.I.D. and major in Multimedia and Web Development. THAT was a “Great Life Decision” (GLD).

In 1999 I moved to Dallas, Texas. Some of my fondest memories during college were nights when my friends would come over and listen to me play original music or covers of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica. They also had a thing for Incubus and STP. I had a thing for Billy Pilgrim and Train.

In the early twenty-naughts I abandoned music for a career. Experience gains ensued at ad agencies, web development firms, manufacturing plants, and event technology providers. After nearly seven years of musical hibernation I picked up a guitar again in 2013 and started playing. My callouses had to be rebuilt. My voice was rusty. But as I practiced, that faint smoldering ash buried deep in my soul began to catch fire…

The following year I managed audio/visuals for an event at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee. I put on a closed performance for a focus group that helped me choose two original songs to showcase during an open mic event at the Douglas Corner Cafe. Those two songs were “Wherever I Go” and “Doesn’t Anybody Wanna?” I was very excited and a bit anxious; ultimately, however, I did my best and had a terrific time… I cherish that experience.

In spring of 2014 I wanted to impress a girl, so I started recording. A four-song demo turned into a full-fledged album. Recordings took place over the course of thirteen months in five different cities on three different continents:

1. Nashville, Tennessee
2. London, England
3. Lima, Peru
4. Dallas, Texas
5. Irving, Texas

The decision was made that I would hire exceptional musicians to bring life to songs that were over twenty years old, and do everything else myself. I would record vocals, mix the tracks, and master the album in my fake-bedroom studio in Irving, Texas, barely a mile away from the former Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters in Valley Ranch.

IT WAS PAINFUL. FRUSTRATING. IMPOSSIBLY DIFFICULT.

A self-imposed deadline of November 11, 2015, proved impossible. I could not get the sound I wanted. On November 17 of that year I distributed a digital pre-release single of “One Last Ride.” I wanted the world to eventually hear the progress I knew I could make.

On December 12, 2015, I decided to make one last major push to finish the album. I took what I refer to as “The PreSonus Plunge.” I ditched Pro Tools and Logic for a program I had zero experience with–a PreSonus solution called Studio One and added a StudioLive CS18 AI controller. After three hours of intense drum mixing, I knew I had made the right choice.

Eleven weeks later, on April 4, 2016, I distributed Omniville for worldwide release on May 15, 2016, a fitting tribute to The 515 Studio in Nashville where, for a single six-hour session, I finally had a band…

But something was off. And as my middle school football coach would say:

“ANYTIME YOU WANT TO POINT YOUR FINGER AT SOMEBODY WHO DID SOMETHING WRONG ON THAT PLAY YOU JUST TURN THAT FINGER RIGHT ON BACK AROUND.” — COACH LEE

So I did. The bass was EQ’d improperly. My vocals were out of sync with the beat. The energy of each track was not shining through… but what to do?

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I decided to do it all over again. And this time, I wanted to document my progress each step of the way.

In February of 2017 I started live internet broadcasts to introduce myself and my songs to the world. I began to see patterns emerge. My story was shaped. My creativity was flowing.

On April 2, 2017, I moved to a new studio space with significantly better acoustic properties to re-record, re-mix, re-arrange, and re-master my debut album. I applied knowledge gained over the better part of a year of full-time music production and online training from websites such as pro-tools-expert.com and groove3.com.

INITIAL RESULTS WERE MORE THAN PROMISING… THEY WERE STARTLING! FINALLY I HEARD THE SOUND THAT HAD BEEN IN MY HEAD FOR OVER TWO DECADES.

On June 16, 2017, I began live internet broadcasts for “A Bedroom Boy’s Best S2: Back to the Country Side.” At the conclusion of 15 consecutive days of filming, I was ready to finally finish my quest to produce an album of original music straight from my heart to your ears.

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That is my narrative so far… but this is just the tip.

– Roy Golden, a.k.a. “Dorado Myself”