Warren Dean

Warren Dean is the pseudonym of an anonymous 27 year old rock musician from London who never fully appears in photos, videos or any kind of promo work.  Why?  Is it possible to get an unknown, unsigned artist into the charts just from word of mouth / talent alone?  Image in nothing, it’s all about the music.

For a FREE MP3 download click
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Warren-Dean/145407182149155

Life moves pretty fast. Sometimes you just have to step off the treadmill and this is simply what I decided to do last November.  On one non-descript Tuesday at my work as an over-paid financial analyst, I went to lunch and didn’t go back. 

 I sat around for weeks declining work from brokers, investment banks, you name them, I told them “not interested.” Weeks turned into months and still I couldn’t grasp what I wanted to do. My savings were pretty much non-existent and I had to take a bank loan out to help pay my monthly mortgage.  One day I was clearing out a cupboard and saw my old guitar. I dusted it down and something just clicked in me.  I hadn’t even touched it in about 3 years and as I sat on my sofa playing a few chords I realized I was writing a new song called “used” as that’s what I felt I had been.  I finished the song in about an hour and needed to test if it was any good.   My friend came over that night and said he liked it and joked that I should try it on the London underground and that if it was a good song, people would pay me…if it was shit, just write a new one.  So I’m at Oxford Circus, the busiest tube station in London and I’m playing and singing “being used by you but you’re the fool.”  No one takes any notice of me at all, and I’m thinking what the fuck have I done?  I walked out on a well paying job to stand here and look a total…then the shiny 2009 ten pence coin lands in my open guitar case.  Its official, I am a professional musician!!!  I am getting paid to sing my song and not work in a dull, grey office!  Do I stop the song and thank the guy, ask how he is?  No, he didn’t even look at me, just walked straight passed me and flipped a coin, I am anonymous to him, just a voice echoing down the tunnel.  Then it struck me, has there ever been an anonymous music act?  No, there hasn’t.  That’s it, I’m going to be the first anonymous musician that half of London has seen play!  Ten pence?  Did he feel sorry for me or did my song connect with him in some way?
  Within an hour I stopped and had a break, counted my loot and had made £5.90…3p short of minimum wage.  I was hooked.  It wasn’t about the money; it was about the fact that people had paid me for entertaining them.

When I got home, I threw out all my work shirts and suits so I couldn’t be persuaded to do the corporate thing ever again and since that day I just carried on doing what I loved with a smile on my face. That’s how it all began and how after just over three months, 50 towns and cities later, this anonymous street musician, troubadour, guitar playing lay-about (?) had raised enough money from his music to record his first album. 

 Thanks to a benevolent studio owner who gave me one week’s recording in the East End of London, paid in the form of coins but most importantly, donations from the general public of Great Britain. They wittingly or unwittingly paid for the debut album to be made through their contributions to hearing what I can only assume was music that they enjoyed.  No image, no hype, just the kind-hearted nature of the British public. 

 I have listed below the towns and cities of Great Britain that have contributed to the creation of my debut album, “Who is Warren Dean?”  It may be the complete opposite to the Britain’s got Talent, X-Factor way the public usually contributes to the creation of a recording artist but in some small way I think the principal is the same.  Instead of voting for Simon Cowells next talentless puppet by picking up the phone and giving him your money, I had it thrown at me!  So, if you happen to remember the guy singing and playing his heart out just for you, wearing his red converse trainers, shark-tooth necklace and baseball cap, thanks for your pennies, and in some cases pounds as you have made this debut recording possible. I hope some of you remember where you first heard these songs, literally on a street in your hometown!
 
Keep rockin, 

WD

With special thanks to the residents and passers by of:
Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Canterbury, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chester, Coventry, Derby, Dumfries, Dundee, Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Gloucester, Hull, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Lisburn, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Middlesborough, Newcastle upon Tyne, Newport, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Peterborough, Preston, Reading, Salisbury, Salford, Sheffield, Southampton, St. Albans, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland, Swansea, Taunton, Wakefield, Wolverhampton, York