Schweitzer

Schweitzer In His Own Words:

I was born in Texas, but due to my father being a Naval Officer, I lived alternately in Texas and California most of my life. My interest in music started fairly early but did not come into focus until High School. My mother had always played guitar and organ and loved to sing, but my brother, Dan, started writing songs, and for me, that was the spark. Eventually, I "sib-jugated" (see what I did there?) the songwriting bug from my brother, only learning guitar - and then piano - to facilitate the writing process. After High School, I joined the U.S. Army and served in Germany in the infantry. But even in this situation, I found my way into the morale program, directing the music for stage productions and performing in variety shows for the troops and their families abroad. Once back in "States" I would play in several bands and work as a recording engineer in Los Angeles, and despite losing control of my music on life's many curves, I would eventually self-publish several albums, a novel, novellas and short stories. On August 1, 2016, my main inspiration and best supporter, my brother, Leland Dan Schweitzer, passed away. I have taken up the mantle of preserving Dan's work, interpolating this effort into my own projects. I was already on-track with my fifth album, but I repurposed it to include my own recordings of several of Dan's songs that had only been recorded as reference versions. Ultimately, I decided to call that album "Fences" after one of my brother's songs. I have also decided that future projects will follow that template until there is no more to offer.

When the self-publishing efforts began I chose to go by only my surname for practical reasons. I realized early on that there's too much "sch" in saying Richard Schweitzer, and that it doesn't fall trippingly off the tongue, though it does trip and fall, I opted against an actual name change... so "Schweitzer".

Today, "Schweitzer Projects," under the "tindog music & stuff" umbrella, is producing songs that generally fall into the Pop / Pop rock or folk categories, venturing into Progressive Rock and musical theater when the mood strikes, and I just want to keep producing. Who knows, someday something may catch just the right ear. Even if I'm no longer around, with the option of the cyber-universe, everything has a kind of immortality.