Steven Daniel Rusan, also known as Stewie… A man of many talents and mysteries… To those of us who know him well, he’s something of an enigma… Most of his adult life was serving his country honorably in United States Army… His main job was working as an intelligence officer for the Special Forces and the CIA… Stewie rarely spoke of his assignments serving around the world… But one night, he opened up to me and spoke about one particular experience in Grenada… I knew this was special, so I listened…
“A Cursed land with fools running ramped. And the Natives were nothing short of heroic. We would pound them all day and all night, but these little Fuckers would keep on coming.” S.
It was during the opening days of the short, but deadly conflict, that Stewie first felt the true calling that he was destined to become… You see, Lt. Rusan and his unit were sent in to gather some intelligence before the actual invasion… While on patrol, they ran across some villagers that seemed to be celebrating around a campfire… Armed civilians… I suppose they were a local militia of sorts… Stewie’s squad surrounded the men and waited for his orders… All of a sudden, a man walked from behind the shelter with a guitar, followed by two more men carrying percussion with them… He held off on the orders and they waited, watched, and listened…
There was one man standing off to the side with a stern look and packing heavy… He caught Stewie’s attention immediately… He had to have been the leader of the men… Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the man began to sing in this beautiful Baritone voice… It had to have been the most subtle, elegant touch of word and melody that Stewie had ever heard… You see, he grew up around music his whole life… And he knew what sounded good and what didn’t… This guy was amazing… And right on cue, the other guys joined in… A wall of sound came towards the men in the bush… A somber feeling came over them all…
This touched Stewie in a way that would take years to explain... But he quickly gained his composure and sent the word back to his men… “On my command.” His order was that no man was to fire unless fired on… Stewie gave the signal to begin and caught the militia by surprise… During all of the mayhem, they didn’t realize there was someone in the shelter some 25 ft from the fire… The men had been staking out the location for hours and felt they had a correct head count… Out of nowhere, gunfire came from the shelter door killing two of the militia men immediately… Stewie’s men returned fire taking down a 10 year old boy that had been asleep the whole time… He was dead before he hit the ground… So they rounded up a few of the captives and headed back to their boats…
“A night that I’ll never forget. A Devil’s Melody, sung by the Son’s of His Bitch.” S.
After this night, nothing would be the same for Stewie… His love for music seemed to take on a whole new meaning… Immediately upon leaving the service, he set out to make his dream come true… So he enrolled at a local music school in Waco, Texas… Here he would study Performance and Audio Engineering… He formed a band, Common Ground, and began touring the State… During this time, he became aware that the studio was where he could make his living…
Stewie started his first and only studio, Direct Resonance Studios, DRS… It was at this time in his life that Stewie finally knew his place in the world… A place far away from what he had trained to do for many years… It was a far stretch from the military, but he adapted his experiences to the running of a studio… Word began to get out about this new Studio in town that was offering great prices for an exceptional product…
Stewie, being very knowledgeable about technology, focused in on all of the new technologies of the day… First starting with Pro Tools, then working his way to the newest programs that were out there… Eventually earning a deal with one of the major programmers as a Prototype customer… They would send Stewie all of the newest software that was available for him to try out and review… It was during these early days that Stewie first met Chapa…
One night after a big show with the boys, a young Chapa approached Lt. Rusan… “Hey man, nice playing. I play Bass.” What an impression he made on Stewie… Little did he know that this was the beginning of a long relationship with the young Artist… First working with the Band OJO, which Chapa played the Bass, and on his solo project, Chapa… The two hit it off immediately… His last project with Chapa, before he left to the Land of the Spiraling Palm Trees, was Much Love… But that wouldn’t last for long… They would soon be back in the studio together to mix and master the young artist's debut album, A Buyer's Ride…
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