Bio
Richard Kaczynski began playing piano at age 4; by age 12, he realized his classical training gave him the chops to play in any style he chose. Thus he embraced progressive rock, the virtuoso-driven art rock style launched in the 1970s by bands like King Crimson, Yes, and Emerson Lake and Palmer. By age 18, he sold his comic book collection for a Hammond B3, Rhodes piano, ARP Odyssey and Solina string synthesizer. He hasn’t looked back since. In the 1990s he played in the groups Gentle Fish and Ghosts of Avalon before founding House of Usher, a band whose debut AMG has called “one of the best prog rock records of the decade.” Their debut CD, Body of Mind, enjoyed worldwide acclaim and a place in Jerry Lucky’s history of the progressive rock movement,
The Progressive Rock Files. The band’s live performances were captured in the first VH-1 Save the Music telethon, the cable television music program Venue, and the retrospective CD box set Encore? from North Carolina’s annual progressive rock festival Progday. Inspired by the Progday experience, Richard began organizing the annual Motor City Progshow, a showcase of progressive rock music in conjunction with Detroit area bands Tiles and Discipline (along with House of Usher); after three years, subsequent iterations were spearheaded by Tiles. During this period, Richard also hosted the bands Par Lind Project and Bon in their Detroit-area appearances, for which House of Usher opened. Richard’s side-project Page freed him to pursue side-interests, including playing on tribute CDs to some of his heroes like Gentle Giant (Giant for a Life), ELP (Fanfare for the Pirates) and PFM (Zarathustra’s Revenge). Richard currently has a number of projects in the works, ranging from progressive rock to electronica.
