Harry Metzler IS
ILL-ADVISED
Fender wins again. Like Beck, Zappa, Clapton, and Hendrix, it was a Strat that fueled Harry Metzler’s drive for rock n’ roll. He was only three years old, but he had found his true love — a double cutaway in turquoise.
Harry’s music education began early as his mother nourished his dream. A gifted coloratura soprano, she knows that a musician is not something one chooses to be; rather, it is something that one is. Anchored by the unlikely combination of his mother’s opera and his elementary school’s 1940’s big band music curriculum, Harry learned to play strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments while still a child. He filtered this foundation through his love of rock music, fronting several bands during his teenage years. While embracing the challenges of making music with friends, Harry honed his craft and became a uniquely versatile musician.
Inspired by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, Todd Rundgren, and Prince, Harry took the reins of his destiny. As a solo musician, he became the band: Ill-Advised. While attending college on a music scholarship at William Paterson University, he began work on what would ultimately become his debut album, Parkway Divides. “I could never find people who liked the same music I did or were as serious as I was,” Harry says. “I had been in bands where someone wouldn’t show up to a rehearsal or to a show, so I’d end up filling in on their instrument in addition to singing. I figured it wouldn’t be that much of a difference if I just wrote and recorded everything myself, since I had pretty much already been doing that for years.”
In true punk rock D-I-Y style, Harry built a studio in his basement with the help of a few friends and set off to work on the album himself, “I produced and engineered the entire album myself and wrote, sang, and played every instrument.