Bio: Brandon Boucher

Brandon was born in the Southern California city of San Bernardino, on what is locally known as the “Four Corners of Death.” The hospital natal department overlooks a cemetery that among others, is Randy Rhoads’ final resting place.

Brandon was born to parents Craig and Susan, then a bunch of stuff happened, and the young couple almost immediately introduced the one constant in Brandon’s life: moving to other states.

Brandon has lived in California, Tennessee, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia-- and currently resides in Oregon.

Brandon is a graduate of West Virginia University.

Brandon says that, when met his wife, he really started living for the first time. Brandon married Sarah Liest in 2007, six months after their first date.

Brandon got his first bass, a Washburn Lyon P bass, for $50 on his 15th birthday. He formed a band later that same day. From there he jammed with a few different bands in West Virginia playing his senior talent show in Gutterhorse.

In college, Brandon was in a cover band (name lost to time) and then joined a Nü Metal outfit called Pull. The band’s major influences were Cold, Adema, Chevelle, etc. They played a lot of clubs around Morgantown, West Virginia and were featured on the Homegrown Show on WCLG.

Brandon was roommates with Pickles from Distorted Penguins when their lead singer was tragically killed. Brandon organized the local scene’s memorial show a few weeks later with Buzz Poets and ten other bands that were all friends with Magic Dave.

After college, Brandon moved back to Southern California and formed a band called Empyre. The band had a few lineup changes, but eventually the four-piece Mars Volta by the way of Tool, the band started gigging hard in and around the Inland Empire and Los Angeles, including gigs at the world-famous Whiskey A Go Go.

When Empyre went on a bit of a hiatus, that ultimately turned into a breakup. Brandon and Matt Becker, Empyre’s guitar player, tried forming a new band, but the project never took off.

Brandon then joined a rock outfit called Three Sheets to the Wind. Nothing particularly of note happened, except that Sarah Liest was friendly with the band-- and that’s how Brandon met his wife and (in his words) really started living for the first time. Brandon married Sarah in 2007, six months after their first date. Three Sheets did play some high-profile gigs at County Fairs and the House of Blues.

Three Sheets became the Seven Mary Three-esque trio called American Standard (named after a toilet). But around that same time, Brandon got the audition for the Lazarus Effect.

He didn’t get the gig... and then he did... and that’s how Brandon met Wulf Downard and Greg Martinez.

After Brandon left The Lazarus Effect, he soft-retired from music for ten years. Then, on a whim, he googled the phrase, “how to record music from home.” Learning that the cost of a functional home studio had dropped tens of thousands of dollars in the ten years since Brandon had (mostly) left the music world, he got the bug again and started stitching together instrumental tracks with the intention of releasing a four-song EP, eventually.

He and Wulf kept in touch over the years and discussed their life events, home studio setups, and recording adventures.

Brandon sent one of the tracks originally meant for his EP to Wulf through Facebook and Wulf’s response was, “that was a fun track, you should let me sing on it…”

Wulf finished the solo album he'd already been working on, and asked Brandon to send him more of his compositions. It wasn't long before Wulf turned those instrumentals into song demos and asked for more. It wasn't long after that the two began to say things to each other like, "Dude, I think we've got an album here..."

Brandon is currently not endorsed by any instrument or software manufacturers, but would embrace such opportunities with both arms.

Brandon currently uses:

• PRS, Fender, Sterling, Eastwood, Epiphone, and Harley Benton guitars and basses

• Presonus Faderport

• Akai MPK

• Native Instruments Komplete Audio Interface

• Logic DAW

• Izotope Neutron and Ozone

• ML Sounds Amped Roots

• ML Sounds Amped Bass

• Neural DSP Darkglass

• Ultra Analog UA3

• Get Good Drums

• Native Instruments

• Plugin Alliance

• Sonarworks Reference ID

• Ernie Ball Strings

• Dunlop Picks

• Audio Technica Studio Headphones

• Monster Cables