About

Brian's started playing the guitar when he was 5 years old, after seeing The Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show.
“I strummed an old broom and whined for two weeks until my dad finally broke down and bought me a guitar just so I’d shut up and my mom could get back to sweeping.”

At the age of 10 he joined his first band called "The Plastic Mind". The first performance of the band was at a schoolmate's birthday party and can be called solo. This is due the fact that they only knew one song at the time and after playing it four times the kids rebelled, unplugged them and started playing records. So much for the performace, but Brian learned a very valuable lesson from it: If you do a one hour show, try to know more than one song.

At the age of sixteen, after playing in several local bands, he was asked to join Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Their songs like "Wooly Bully" and "Little Red Riding Hood" were well known. Brian spend the entire summer singing Wolly Bully behind Sam and to Brian it was all quite surreal. Fact was that the last time he "played" that song was on his mom's broom.
During his high school years, Brian worked in nightclubs around the greater Los Angeles area and, right after he turned eighteen, he auditioned for Frank Zappa. At first he didn't get the job but, after a few months he received a call from his office asking if he was available for some session work.

Brian spent a year studying composition, music theory and orchestration at the prestigious Groove School of Music in Los Angelas. During his study he began a year long relationship with Norman Whitfield (ex-Motown). Brian recorded for him and watched him producing was like getting a Masters from Julliard.

At the age of 22, Brian signed a multi-record deal with Polydor Records. He released his first album, Don't Stop Now, under the pseudonym, "The Brian West Band" and became gold in Scandinavia. They toured extensively in Europe and had some limited success there. By the time the returned to the States the band blew up and each went a seperate way. In the Brians words: "The 80's are kind of a blur."
Brian continued doing session work and working within the Club Circuit in L.A. during the 90's. He also dabbled in television and movie scoring and worked on shows like TV 101 and Eerie, Indiana. As music score is used to add ambience instead of being noticed and Brian had praticed a lot in writing music nobody noticed, he thought he was doing a good job. However, they did notice it and his career was short-lived.

In 2003 Brian was signed to a publishing contract in Nasville as a writer and released two indie CD's: "My Old Guitar" and "Carney Man". As he tried to be a serious artist, his songs always came out left of center. However, as a comedy-song writer he received far more recognition. Since a lot of songs we're written in the first person nobody wanted to record them.
Brian started performing at The Improv Comedy Club in Los Angeles as a standup comedian in the summer of 2006. Within six months he was working the comedy circuit full-time, playing to packed houses and getting rave reviews.

In 2007, he lended his talents to the latest Warner Bros. CD by his son’s VMA award winning band, Avenged Sevenfold. Watching his son succeed at such a high level and being able to help him has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of his live.

For the past year, he has been touring around the world together with Jeff Dunham. As "Guitar Guy" he has an opening act in Jeff's show. He also brought his gift of song to Jeff's fantastic cast of characters. They will be signing Brian's original tunes on Jeff's upcoming Comedy Central Christmas special and DVD "Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas". On the companion CD, "Don't come home for Christmas", you will find 12 original songs.

When Brian is not touring with Jeff, he headlines Improv Comedy Club across the country.

 

 

 

Source of information: www.brianhaner.com