Marcus Dufray

Marcus Dufray is a singer-songwriter and producer of pop-rock-oriented songs. Originally from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, he began playing the guitar at the age of 14. His first musical inspirations came from the musical taste at the time of his dad, who had cassettes and LPs of artists and bands such as the Bee Gees, ABBA, the Beatles, Dire Straits, and the early stuff of Neil Diamond. To name a few. During the early eighties it was just the artists and bands hitting the charts at that time up until Live Aid. Once he started to play the guitar, he got introduced to heavy metal, mostly influenced by Iron Maiden at the time. The guitar playing really took off with the release of "Live After Death," where he played along pretty much with all the songs. After that he appeared in bands, and the metal became louder and louder. Influences from bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Testament, and Sepultura were dominating at the time. During the nineties the long wild hair disappeared and settled down with more progressive melodic rock bands such as Queensrÿche and Dream Theatre. During the '00s, he took much pleasure in recording his own songs acoustically. And this is what he has been doing mainly for the last 10 years. Marcus has been playing live in many venues around the world ever since. This album, "Rise Up," is what he always wanted to achieve. Hopefully it will reach out to a bigger audience.