En Route: Bio
Bart Vogel - Guitars, Lead Vocals
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: Diablo Valley, California
Q: When did you start playing guitar?
A: 1974.
Q: What is the first song you remember hearing on the radio?
A: "Red Roses For A Blue Lady" by Wayne Newton.
Q: What was the first song you learned on the guitar?
A: Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Q: When did you start writing songs?
A: When I was 14. A song about Jesus and his disciples out on a lake in a storm. I think I have the lyrics and chords to it in my stuff but I don’t remember the tune. One of my very early songs, written when I was about 16 or 17, I still have in my long-term memory and is called “Way By Which We’ll Go”.
Q: What about writing songs?
A: I feel like it’s a direct connection to the Creator of Creativity.
Q: Who first told you you could sing?
A: My choir teacher from elementary school, Robert Tan.
Q: Who are some of your (musical) influences?
A: Steven Curtis Chapman, John Denver, Keith Knoche, Rose City Singers, Sting, Randy Stonehill, James Taylor, Jim Croce, Amy Grant and The Imperials.
Q: List the cds your listening to now?
A: Pierre Cruzatte - A Musical Journey Along The Lewis & Clark Trail, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Robert Johnson - King Of The Delta Blues, john denver - definitive all-time greatest hits, Steven Curtis Chapman - Declaration, Eric Johnson - Bloom, Windham Hill - State of Grace, Russ Taff - The Way Home, Mike Mennard - Grace & other stuff, Phil Keaggy - Roundabout, Greg Brown - If I Had Known (Essential Recordings, 1980 - 1996).
Debbie Vogel - Lead Vocals
Many of my childhood days were spent at my grandparent’s home, which is synonymous with love. Their one hundred and sixty acre ranch was nestled at the bases of the Sierra Nevada’s, literally at the end of a road. It provided an extravaganza for adventure when I was joined by my cousins, who were just down the road a piece. Often we would spend an entire day lost in a world of kings and queens and soldiers and Indians and survival. All was create with the magic of cow trails, granite out-croppings, and the remnants of a lighting struck oak tree. On other days we would find ourselves playing dress-up. Grandma or Mom’s old skirts or strips of fabric were draped and pinned and sashed until we stood there beautifully adorned in the innocence of childhood, while trying on the loveliness of womanhood that would one day be ours. Back in those days the Bob Hope tours for men serving in the military were big. So on occasion we would find ourselves twirling around on the front porch singing our #1 hit I Want Some Red Roses for a Blue Lady performing for a make believe audience of service men on the front lawn. It must have been then that my love for performance began.
When I was a child I remember going to a concert with my family. While watching the performers on stage I had a deep felt confidence - a knowing - that one day I would share my presence from a stage. It is interesting to me that “sharing my presence” seems more important than performing. While I have many fond and love-filled childhood memories, there were some “passive wounds” (Eldridge) placed on my young heart that have created a hunger and longing for something more. . . . . I am coming to know that God has called me by name. That I am His and He is mine. It is a love that can be trusted. That is enough. It is the heart of this journey, my journey that I am pleased to share with you through the music of En Route.
Richard Harty - Keyboards, BGV's
Music and being an artist have always been parts of my life. I believe that artistic expression is at the heart of spirituality. The arts are able to express things that words alone can never reach. In my connection with the Divine music has been able to bring me into contact with the inner journey in ways that I never thought possible.
Probably what expresses my musical bio the most is the people who shaped the musical expression in me. My first piano teacher lived across the street and she had this wonderful ability to teach me things I needed to know without me being conscious of it. We would do all kinds of fun music that I “chose” and she slipped in the circle of fifths, key signatures, scales, intervals, and all this music theory that I didn’t even know I knew until I began to compose in late elementary school. She always had the latest electronic keyboard, whether it was a Rhodes piano or a clavinet sitting in her living room ready for some curious student to ask to play it.
I have had many other teachers including band, choir, trumpet, and piano teachers, but each built on that music foundation my first teacher brought to the table. I continue to be a student of music as I explore gospel, pop, blues, jazz, and each new form that emerges from our human experiences.
When I do write lyrics they come from my own spiritual journey, birthed from joy, pain, gratitude, anger, sorrow, and the whole of my own very human experience. I believe that grace allows us the space to love every part of ourselves so that all can be healed and transformed.
I hope that when you listen to our music, you can hear the history behind it in each note, each sound, and each word and know that there is love and healing for every person that is seeking, no matter what may have happened to you or what you may have done or what you may feel at this moment.
http://whatisspiritual.blogspot.com/
Karey Harty - Percussion, BGV's
I had a dream during the summer of 2005 which unraveled a belief I held since I was in Elementary School. While it was specifically related to art, it has affected my view of my entire life.
Art class was always a welcome relief for me in Elementary School. We were never tested and virtually everyone received an “A” for our work if it looked like we were trying. But I never knew what to draw or make. My pictures were usually of a simple house with a pathway to the front door, a few flowers (usually daisies ‘cuz they’re easy to draw) and a happy family (females wore triangle dresses). When the teacher gave us clay, I would just squish it a few times and call it “abstract art”, then paint it in psychedelic colors.
So, although I had fun ( and my mother still displays one of my so-called abstract sculptures in her dining room), I concluded in my mind that I am NOT an artist. And I never took another art class again during my education. I focused instead on the sciences and became a physical therapist (which I thoroughly enjoy as a career). I have always believed that being an artist was for other people and I’m just not one of them, although I love museums and art shows and the symphony and other concerts which OTHER people display or produce.
But then I had a dream; a dream in which I sculpted an object. And it was so real. When I woke up, I felt it in my hands, as if I had really done it. And it felt good. The object I sculpted was so detailed and specific ( I remember how it felt to form all those lines and shapes), I can still describe that object exactly. And it moved me.
I became open to the idea that, “Maybe I AM an artist.” Maybe I CAN sculpt. What if I took a Sculpture class at the local Junior College and learned from a “real” artist?
So I signed up for Sculpture. “Dancing My Dreams” 2006 is the first sculpture piece I have made since Elementary School. She makes me very happy when I look at her because she reminds me that while I BELIEVE I can’t do something, I will never do it. But as soon as I believe I can, I will. And I did.
“gregorymichael” 2007 is the third piece I’ve sculpted since Elementary School. It is a piece inspired in me by my son, Greg, who composes some of the most beautiful music that sings in my soul. I submitted this piece and “Dancing My Dreams” to the Art Show at Horton Gallery at San Joaquin Delta College in April, 2007. Both pieces were accepted but this piece has brought me more attention than I expected. The Dean of the Art Department requested that I loan “gregorymichael” to be displayed in the foyer of the Warren Atherton Auditorium (the main venue for the Stockton Symphony and other large performances) for the entire 2007/2008 school year!
Someone really famous once said; “…I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” So many obstacles in our lives appear to be immovable mountains that we can never overcome, but I wonder if it is only so because we BELIEVE it to be so. I really believed, in every cell of my body and mind, that I could NOT produce art that anybody, including myself, would want to view. I wasn’t denigrating myself. It was simply an observation based on my experience. And I believed it to be a fact. It was, however, a lie. A lie based on minimal experience with, although well-meaning I’m sure, no real artist mentor to guide me.
Maybe its time to review the beliefs I hold about myself. What limitations have I placed on myself? What am I dreaming about these days? What keeps me from following my dreams?
Group History - The Band Formerly Known as Promise
Bart, Debbie and Barry Butler started the group Promise in 1982. Two acoustic guitars, three vocals. We covered songs of some early contemporary christian artists (Amy Grant, Cynthia Clausen, Randy Stonehill, etc.) and wrote some of our own. See photos on Photo Page under folder entitled "Past Blast"!
Eddie Haffner joined the group as sound engineer in late 1985. Barry left the group in early 1987 and Richard joined that summer. Along the way Ryan Payne, Paul Brinley, Kevin Marlow, Darin Anastasio, Greg Evans and Greg Jones (in no particular order) have been members of the group.
In September 1999 the recording process was begun on the band's first CD - Life As We Know It. The band was renamed En Route in the early part of the new millenium. Karey Harty joined the group in early 2004. No live performing took place until the CD was completed in late 2004. En Route's "first concert" was November 16, 2004 at Galt First Baptist Church in Galt, California.
Eddie Haffner - Live Sound & Recording Engineer
It has been said that sound engineers are frustrated musicians. While that may not always be the case it is true for me. I started out at a young age with piano and music theory and eventually ended up taking guitar, trumpet, trombone and voice lessons as well. Through junior high and high school I performed with the choir and band and in small groups performing mostly at schools and churches. During this time I started running the “PA” system at church and for some school functions. By the time I got to college I was burned out on performing, nearly every weekend so it seemed, and stopped altogether. Then in 1982 I heard about a music group from a local church that was looking for a sound engineer. I had never run sound for a “band” before but because of my background they gave me the job anyway. That group was the first of many bands I have run sound for in the years since. The rest, as they say, is history.