The Beyond Atlantic Story

In the beginning there was a multi-instrumentalist (drums, keyboards, guitar, etc.. etc...) named Bernd.  Burnt Will, as he is known musically, was tucked away near Nuremberg, Bavaria, writing adult contemporary rock songs of all varieties with great rapidity.  He joined a popular music collaboration website in order to further the development of his songs and quickly took up with Suzann Baldwin, a Washington state poet who was giving lyric writing a try.

Bernd discovered that Suzann had the uncanny ability to fill his vocals lines – which were frequently mashups of existing song lyrics designed merely to convey his ideas for a melody – with fresh new lyrics that fit the mood of the music. 

The pair began collaborating and attracted the guitar stylings of another German - and another Bernd – Bernd Kunrath who began to add his skillful and appropriate riffs and solos from his home studio north of Stuttgart.

Female vocalist Delyn soon followed with some backing tracks for some early songs and an expression of interest for more involvement should the right songs come along.

Meanwhile the nascent group began looking for a male vocalist who could handle both smooth ballads and rockers and asked

Mike Ousey, a Philadelphia area vocalist to try out.   After penning some 25 song lyrics and singing in 40+ collaborations overall, Mike was beginning to feel that he would never find a home for his voice amongst the metal and the pop. Within just a couple days of singing Suzann's lyrics to the Bernds' music, it was clear that here was exactly what Mike needed:  The melodic rock/AOR and adult contemporary music he had learned to sing to growing up  (Rush, Toto, Asia, Marillion, etc...) was alive, well , and updated in Burnt Will's music, a dedicated writer of lyrics would keep him singing and cut down on the time spent conjuring up new lyrical ideas, and he would be sharing song space with a talented guitarist – a necessity for an old metal head who had spent many years playing guitar himself.

After a few songs, the chemistry was such that the group tossed aside the small-minded initial thoughts of making songs to share with the music collaboration community and friends and began to plan for a full-length release, a real website, a real indie marketing push, and a serious attempt to make money and win musical influence in the world of melodic rock/AOR and adult contemporary music.

The immediate goal is to finish recording our debut release, release it sometime in mod-late 2012, sell a minimum of 10K plus units and, if the rock gods are smiling on Beyond Atlantic, fund a mini-tour in 2013 in a few select global cities.

Help us reach our goal by buying our release and signing up for the mailing list.  Thanks for listening!