I’ve always been interested in music and the feelings it can create, the messages it can convey and the inspiration it can drive. My first forays into music were not particularly impressive. I played the triangle out of time at school, fumbled the recorder and was told I was slowing the guitar class down in it’s learning – I just didn’t get it. However, around the age of 9, I started experementing with music using my elder brother Michael’s music gear.

My brother was part of a band in Ipswich known as “Choice” and my cousin Joseph was part of a well known UK Reggae band called “Jah Warriors”. Michael had at various points a Korg Mono Poly Synthesizer, Roland SH-101 Synthesizer, Simmons SDS-1000 Electric Drum Kit, and a bass guitar – I used those when I could. I liked the drums but never really got into playing, technically, they were too difficult for me. However, synth and bass were, on the other hand instruments I really liked to play, and I have always played keyboard on and off over the years.

My first keyboard was a Casio SK-200 sampling keyboard which I had alongside an Aria Pro bass and a electric guitar I bought off an school friend along with an old crackly amp and headphone mixing box that doubled as a mixer because you reverse the outputs with the input. The SK-200 had a limited sequencer and a sampling option but was great fun. My earliest recordings were through the condenser mic inputs of analog tape recorders, very noisy!

When I first started writing songs more intentionally, though as a hobby still, I understood that I should be writing spiritual music – having been in the Baptist church in my home town. However, my lifestyle wasn’t spiritual but worldly, as after I left the church (on points of doctrine) I wasn’t reading the bible or praying much at all. Things might have turned out somewhat differently if I had known there was a Seventh Day Adventist Church in my town. However, I was following the ways of regular people, all about clothes, experiences, and the Soul/Dance, Hip-Hop and R&B music scenes of the 80’s and 90’s.

I later got a Korg M1 synthesiser and Roland Sound Canvas which I used to produce a lot of tracks in the late 80’s while I was in high school and college. Some of my friends described as elevator music, but others found other styles I wrote creative. All I knew was, I just like writing whatever I could and covered a few different styles including Swing/R&B, Reggae, House and Hip-Hop. I sent off a few demo’s to record labels at that time, but never heard anything back. I missed the opportunity to write spiritual music, and just wrote instrumentals, bar one rudimentary hip hop track which I don’t think was recorded, only rehearsed.

I took a break from music for a few years while at university in London, in fact the creative urge left me. This is where I got into clubbing, drinking and smoking weed. Looking back I am not proud at all of those years, and really see myself departing from a lot of the principles I thought were good. I went to university to get an education that would propel my life into one of success, but sadly it didn’t work out as I expected.

It was a few years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence that I was attacked by a group of weapon weilding, drunken thugs in East London. I made an untanticipated return to Ipswich, and suddenly found that I wanted to write music again. In 1996/7 the Future By Design project was born – eclectic and experimental – I was writing mainly dance music, but with some soul/jazz flavoured tracks too.  The 1998 release of Long Journey Home was my first small scale commercial release. I pressed a limited run of 1,000 CD’s and self-distributed those via a local distribution company to major music retailers in the UK, and offered online sales via a reudimentary website. I also distributed the CD’s in person by taking a box of 100 on the train to London to visit independent retailers. It was an interesting period, but it didn’t last as I hit a few hurdeles.

Financially the biggest retailer stocking my CD’s took six months to pay me after accepting CD’s on a 30 days sale or return agreement. However, the biggest challenge to my progress came from within. My brother Kenneth died in 1998, shortly before I started promoting my music in earnest, and as I was upset about his death and still coming to terms with it, I found it difficult to work effectively at times. In addition, I got the feeling from entering into the music industry that all was not well, and I had actually ventured into an arena, where sprituatly I was “under attack”, and it was unexpected – undermining my confidence and resolve.

I ended the Future By Design venture in 2001, but it was a difficult decision and one that I later reveresed.

In 2004 I set up another smaller studio and began a new project called DC:UL (Defy Convention : Uphold Law). Now I was writing spiritual, “Christian” music, even singing and rapping, explaining my learning about faith as well as praise. Due to pursuing a career in Software Engineering, I paused the DC:UL project around 2008 to enable study and work. I didn’t release any of the DC:UL tracks as anythng other than promos until 2020.

In 2019 I started building my current studio. I was doing fairly well in my career at that time and had the disposable income to plough into building a fairly comprehensive semi -pro setup. Strangely I found that my music had a fairly heavy Reggae influence, and I was steering away from Drum and Bass. However, I have a back catalogue of unreleased work that will keep the Future By Design and DC:UL releases rollinng out for some time, while I decide which direction I want to take my efforts in. I like a lot of different styles of music and find it difficult to write in one genre.

I write Reggae music under the pseudonym Burnished Bronze, but there have been no commercial releases yet. I anticipate my first vocal album will be released under the Burnished Bronze pseudonym. I also began writing Rock/Pop under my own name Anthony Ewers – which again is yet another style I wamt to write in, and contrasts with the styles of music in my music collection.

Right now I’m working on Burnished Bronze, Anthony Ewers, DC:UL and Future By Design material simultaneously, which is demainding. I’m still learning the gear I bought, the instruments, technical gear, software, singing technique etc. It’s exciting to look ahead and believe that I can build something from the ground up, something that reflects who I truly and and what I believe, rather than be slaving away for a company that want’s to hollow out my soul. Workinjg in music is hard, it doesn’t pay as well for me because I don’t have a massive audience, but I find it worthwhile and inside I feel that now I am doing the right thing.   I’ve managed to find the focus to use all my talent, limited or otherwise into writing spiritual music. I beleive The Creator has called me to do this and through His grace I will continue to do so.

I’ve been interested in music from an early age and have played various instruments such as the Recorder and even the Acoustic Guitar. I never managede to get proficient with those instruments at school. However, one of my my elder brothers Michael, was more advanced and had a electronic drum kit Simmons SDS-1000, and Korg Mono/Poly and Roland SH-101 synths and a bass guitar. He was part of a local band called “Choice”. My cousin Joseph was part of a well respected Reggae band in Ipswich called Jah Warriors also. I liked the drums but never really got into playing, synth and bass were, on the other hand instruments I really liked to play, and I have always played keyboard on and off over the years.

My earliest recordings were through the condenser mic inputs of analog tape recorders, very noisy!

Casio SK200 Sampling Keyboard

My first keyboard was a Casio SK-200 sampling keyboard which I had alongside an Aria Pro bass and a electric guitar I bought off an school friend along with an old amp and headphone mixing box that doubled as a mixer because you reverse the outputs with the input. The SK-200 had a limited sequencer and a sampling option but was great fun.

Kawai K4 Synthesiser

I managed to organise a work experience placement at a small recording studio, Toadstool Music, just outside Ipswich in Bramford with a friend of my brother who was in his band. They had a very impressive A&H mixing desk, with a Kawai K4, Alesis Midiverb II and some other bits of kit. This got me even more interested in the technical aspects of music and MIDI. I recorded a dark and melancholy track called Memory during this time, it was an instrumental track and recall playing it back to people in my school music class. They were very impressed.

Korg M1 Synthesiser

Around 1998/1989 I was pleaded with my parents to get a Korg M1 music workstation, and I built a mini home studio around that with a Roland SC-55 Sound Canvas and Cheetah SX-16 sampler. I started producing a number of tracks following the early Swing/R&B style popular at that time, but also, Soul, and ill fatedly some Hip-Hop tracks for some so-called “friends” who I met through school and college.

Rolands SC-55 Sound Canvas Sound Module

Cheetah-SX16 Sampler

My recordings were a bit better as I recorded into the RCA phono inputs of my Technics tape deck, through a series of Y splitter cables that merged the outputs of all my equipment. Unconventional but it worked!

Technics RS-B965 3-head cassette deck

When I went to university 1993, I lost the drive to write music and gave up for a few years, but picked up again when I returned home in 1996.

Generalmusic S3 Turbo Synthesiser

With the budget limitations I had, I got a bargain basement new synth, a Generalmusic S3 Turbo, an Italian 88 note weighted keyboard with some interesting sounds, 6 outputs and 2 sets of MIDI ports also with the ability to import Samples.

I built up quite an impressive home studio with a Mackie 1402 VLZ desk, Akai S1000 and later S3000XL sampler, Sony DT1000 ES DAT recorder, Alesis D5 drum machine, Alesis Midiverb 4 FX unit, Yamaha MU100R Sound Module.

Mackie 1402vlz Mixing Desk

Akai S1000 Sampler

Yamaha MU100R Sound Module

It was with this set up that I really explored styles of dance music including Drum ‘n’ Bass, House and Garage, and wrote my first album, “Long Journey Home” under the artist name Future By Design. It was an eclectic mix of styles received well locally, and with some limited airplay on Radio One.

Anthony Ewers aka Future By Design interview picture for The East Anglian Daily Times

I’ve always felt a need to write songs which say something, but ironically most of my early music had no lyrics! That was until my fourth studio attempt, which was very minimal with just a EMU PK-6, cheap Stagg microphone recorded via an Edirol USB/MIDI interface into Steinberg Cubase SL3. This was my first foray into digital recording. You can listen to my efforts done under the artist name DCUL. Read on to find out more.

RIGHT NOW

Currently, I have a Korg Kronos 2 88 note synthesiser, Allen & Heath QU-32 mixing desk, Roland Integra-7 sound module, Akai Z8 sampler, Kawai K4 synth, Lexicon PCM92 & Kawai RV-4 multi effects, Alesis Midiverb II effects, a BBE 822a Sonic Maximiser, A MAM VSR-3 Spring Reverb, and a Tascam TA-1VP vocal processor and Tascam solid state media recorder. I run Cubase 14 and thank Yah that he has blessed me with the opportunity to explore praising him with music as I do.

I’m moving my focus away from writing instrumental music to writing music with vocals focusing on social concern, black awareness, faith and other matters that are close to my heart. I believe the world continues to be dominated by those whose humanity is merely a masquerade, and that the “voiceless” must find the power to speak and then through action bring about positive change.