Fans: 18
His high school career counsellor never saw it coming. As a spiky haired teen in the late 80's Wolfe hustled shoulder-padded fashions, chainsaws, hamburgers, and shingles on rooftops. Finally he snagged the career he wanted with a simple ad in a London Ontario Music store. His dream job? Guitarist/rock 'star'/songwriter. Wolfe strummed electric 'walls of sound' guitar in Canadian clubs- sneaking in originals (they didn't want them in those days) and covering stuff like U2, The Fixx, Tears for Fears, and Rush. He developed his own sound-- moving toward the finger-style work of Bruce Cockburn or Mark Knopfler. Taking a break from road life, he swapped his white Fender axe for Trident chef knives: apprenticing in 4-star hotel kitchens. The big benefit: the self-discipline he sorely lacked, and discovered a talent for fancy pastry. Wolfe was never far away from his 4 track recording machine. Over the next decade he continued to dabble in various rock outfits- even winning finalist positions in FM rock songwriter contests (His home-demoed recording was beat out by big LA budget songstress Emm Gryner, but he's since learned to like her). His 4 track grew to 16 -then to 24 tracks of Pro Tools magic. After 2 cassettes and then 2 self-produced amateurish Cd's, a polished gem emerged: "11:59" -- a testament to Wolfe's nearly 20 years of melody-honing skills and atmosphere-creating experience. There is a deliberate absence of electric guitars or keyboards on this one. He challenged himself to create only acoustic textures (except for bass). That's probably what pushed him to trying cello- almost an afterthought. He played it for 2 years in high school, so borrowed one to add dark sinewy colors to 'spark of light'. It worked so well that he added it to several other tracks. "Spark of Light" was intended to be an instrumental: just one track of guitar. It was a piece written years ago. But he added the lyrics and cello almost last minute, and it's quickly became one of the stand-out tracks of the CD. The fact that it ended up being the last one- all the more ironic. "So Naive" has a haunted Radiohead-like intro. Dean put pro tools to work for him, manipulating a reversal effect on the bass guitar. Matt of Autumneve claims it's his favorite cut. While composing "Jack in the Box" Dean always felt a ghost of early- Sting hanging around: too bad Manu Katche couldn't fill in the drums during the last Latin-jazz influenced finale. His stuff sounds like early Neil Young, Crowded House, Bright Eyes, Damien Rice, Jayhawks, Ben Folds, Wilco, Paul McCartney. He played everything including the bass, cello, drums, harmonica, pedal steel, banjo. Vocally, Wolfe is reminiscent of 'Ben Folds'. A St. Catharines native (the same soil that brought us Neil Peart and Ron Sexsmith), Dean Wolfe (born Dean Salmela) now resides in Toronto Ontario with wife Janine, sons Nathan and Benjamin, and Mazzie the black luxurious cat.
