Guy Corl

GUY CORL (Skeleton City) from ROOFTOP SESSIONS CHICAGO on Vimeo.

GUY CORL (Winner) from ROOFTOP SESSIONS CHICAGO on Vimeo.

About Guy Corl

Guy Grace (Corl) was born during the winter of 1978 to a good home in the dying steel town of Youngstown Ohio. Though his young childhood was a happy one, the family was uprooted by economic development westward, and resettled in the small northwestern town of Bryan Ohio during the late 1980s. Cut from their roots, each member struggled for acceptance in the new place. Not the least of this forever change was felt by their young son.

Athletic, yet introverted, social, yet soft-spoken, Guy stumbled through adolescence for an identity and for a group of friends with whom he could identify. The change came with a copy of Slayer’s ‘Reign in Blood’ album, loaned to him during the spring of his 8th grade year of school. Until this time, Guy had consumed primarily rap music, and had not considered a means of creative expression. As this time of discovery spilled out before him, Guy’s absorption of hard rock and metal music reached a fever pitch. To further participate in this newfound love, and with the friends who brought it to him, Guy purchased his first electric guitar at Thanksgiving 1990. A large Kustom amplifier was to follow, as was a long practice in song creation and performance.

Bryan was home to few rock groups in the early nineties, and fewer metal groups. This quickly changed in 1992, with the formation of Guy’s group ‘SIVA’, local classmate’s hardcore band ‘The Whigs’, and the older, virtuosic ‘Bonehead’. Shows were planned, Flyers were posted, and for the first time, Guy began to channel a long felt creative inclination into music and words. By the end of 1993, SIVA boasted 10 original songs that fell between the hard rock stylings of Alice in Chains and the progressive metal of Faith No More. As high school soldiered on, the songs, recordings and shows of these groups piled an exciting collection of original music for such a small, rural area.

As is often the case at the crossroads of our lives, the principles of this beloved scene scattered upon graduation of high school. Guy found his future in Orlando Florida, for the pursuit of knowledge in the field of audio recording. Having created four albums of material in Ohio, Guy thought it prudent to develop this interest as a marketable skill. Technology got the better of him though, as it enabled the dawn of home recording just as he was finishing a degree in recording engineering. Without job prospects, Guy began working for a stagehand throughout Florida, and for a sound reinforcement company based in upstate New York. Bored with the small music folk music scene central Florida had to offer, Guy decided to make good on a romantic desire to continue his musical narrative in a town with a much richer musical history, Chicago.

Once established in ‘The Miami of Canada’, Guy set to work both as a solo artist, and with the bands ‘Dynamos’ and ‘Hoyne’. Through the development of recordings such as ‘New Works’, ‘We’, ‘Cold Morning’, and ‘It Catches my Heart in its Hand’, as well as albums with both bands, Guy continues to refine the voice he’d found many years ago in a far away place.

These days, as the result of a demanding job in corporate theatre, Guy is limited to participation in music to notebooks, garageband, and facebook. Though the bands, the fans, the stages, late nights, sweaty load outs, morning headaches, and empty pockets are gone, he continues to write and hopes to perform again one day. He has always appreciated every ear.