Shane Gaalaas

Shane Gaalaas
B'z Drummer
Background information
Origin	Canada
Genres	Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal
Years	1987–Present
Labels	Vermillion Records (2002-Present) with B'z, ZAIN RECORDS (2003-Present)
Website	http://www.shanegaalaas.com

Shane Gaalaas, currently drummer for B'z, was born on August 8th 1967 in Innisfal, Alberta, Canada, has a multitalent for instruments. Besdies from playing drums he contributed in many other projects along the road. His dedication for music was born during a KISS concert at the young age of nine. This decication was to flower in one of the most outstanding carreers a musician can experience.

General

As a third generation canadian, with norwegian roots, Shane grew up in Innisfail where he developed his dedication for music. With his families support he started playing guitar at the age of nine. This was due to a live concert of KISS during their 'Love Gun' tour. Just a year later he picked up playing drums and held some jamming session with his friend. As a matter of fact Innisfail was able to hear those session: "I would be in the basement cranking my Peavey Decade and pounding my drums as hard as I could, and they would just put up with it. My friend Dan would come over and we would jam through a PA, open up all the windows, so the 3500 residents of Innisfail could all hear us." (Shane Gaalaas)

Band Carreer

After countless hours of practising and jamming with his friend Shane wanted to give his musical carreer a try. Shortly after graduation from High School he hooked up with a Top 40 Band. In 1987 he enrolled at the Grant MacEwan Music College in Edmonton. Over the next three years he toured with canadian circus bands while studying percussion, piano and jazz. Until 1991 he toured with guitarist and producer Paul Dean (Loverboy). 1993 Shane decided to move to Los Angeles and started attending the Musical College - Musicians Institute - Percussion Institute of Technology (P.I.T.). A year later he graduated with vocational Honors and a 'Rock Drummer of the Year' award. Starting 1994 he was recommended by Deen Castronovo (Journey, Ozzy Osbourne) and started playing with the swedish guitar player Yngwie Malmsteen. This collaboration continued until 1995 when Malmsteen decided to take a break. Together with bassist Barry Sparks he went on and started playing for the Michael Schenker Group, Vinnie Moore and eventually for the german guitar master Uli Jon Roth (ex-Scorpions).
After founding Cosmosquad and having at concert at the Madison Sqaure Garden he crossed path with one Jeff Kollman and bringing up an era of highly acclaimed fusion works. Since then Gaalaas and Kollman never lost contact and worked on my projects together.
After becomming one of the driving forces for the L.A. extreme metal band 'Diesel Machine' his live was once again to take a turn. It was in 2008 when he was approached to cover the end of B'z 20th anniversary tour. Since then he is a much valued addition to B'z.

Solo Carreer

During his time in Japan, and his successfull collaboration with B'z he started working on a project that is a milestone of its own. His first solo album (Primer). Shane composed, produced, wrote lyrics, played all instruments(guitar[lead and rythm], keyboard, bass and drums) and to top it off he also did the vocals. After the debut of Primer he was known as "The muscial one-man-army". Koshi Inaba contributed harmonica to the song 'Time to Feed'. Primer was released under his own label Zain in Japan in the year 2004.
Just one year later he his second solo-ablum 'Hinge' was released. This album marked his the spot where Shane stepped from his drums and stood on stage as the front-man, guitarist and vocalist. Touring japan and finally releasing a (japan-only) home DVD 'Lvie and Video-Clips' in combination with the live album 'Live in Osaka' in summer 2006ö.

Primer

Shanes first solo album features 10 songs.
A wild composion of different and yet perfectly matching music styles. May it be metallic crunch' n' groove or infectious modern rock flavors in combination with introspective acoustic moments. Finally it's all topped off by a multi-layered vocal approach.

1. New Beginning

2. The Lost Weekend

3. Error Humanize

4. Laca

5. Locked Down

6. Determination

7. Missing So Long

8. Carol

9. Time to Feed

10. Ode to Gertrude

Hinge

Shanes second solo album consists of 11 songs that once again show his wide variety of musicianship.
Starting off with mettallic bludgeon riffs before wandering to a Beatles-like acoustic-pop that fades into a grinding Electronica-infused groove to finally fade out with an anthemic big-hook rock.

1. To The Ground

2. Inside Out

3. Just Like You

4. Hearing What You Said

5. The Wave

6. Broken Stranger

7. Sickify

8. Funny People

9. Derailed

10. Til Forever Ends

11. Respect The Zamboni

Influences

After listening to everything that his parents jukebox had to offer (i.e. Elvis Presley) his fated encounter was, after a lot of begging, at the age of nine during a KISS concerd! He learned playing drums by listening to KISS, AC/DC, Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Van Halen.