Joy Electric

There is a lot to say about this band. People tend to disregard it for many reasons, which is a mistake. Some would disregard it because they hear "Electric" and think "techno", which is wrong. Joy Electric is melody-oriented, lyrically catchy pop music. No, not like Britney, much better than that because the lyrics are well written and cover a wide range of topics. Joy Electric is comparable to "Depeche Mode, Moby or Madonna" according to Ronnie, the guy behind the music. Of course, none of these comparisons really conveys what Joy Electric sounds like, and you must really check them out for yourself at joyelectric.com or their mp3 site.

Joy Electric: Who they are

Joy Electric is Ronnie Martin.

But there are two people pictured on CDs, one may say. That is Jeff Cloud. He is a pseudo-member. He does nothing relating to the making of the music. He is simply the booking agent and he used to play synthesizers live with Ronnie. He has recently decided to abandon poor Ronnie and go run his label and perform in another band. But no worries! Since he had nothing to do with the production of the music, the sound will still be yummy, and he is still booking for Ronnie.

There was another pseudo member, as well. His name was Todd Gilliland and all he did was play drums live for Ronnie. He also decided to abandon Ronnie to become a full-time worship leader for a church, and to work on his own band, "The Gold."

So the band is just Ronnie Martin, and now that we have that established, we can move on. Moving on...

The History of Ronnie

Before JoyE¹ Ronnie was in quite a few bands. In 1988 Ronnie and his brother Jason² formed "Link of the Haunted" which was changed to "Two Lads". They played at their high school's senior banquet under this name. A year later, they tried a new project, a rock and roll band, and called it "The Chant"³. They changed the name to "Morella's Forest" before signing to Narrowpath Records. Ronnie played guitar, Jason played drums, and a friend of theirs named Randi Lamb played bass. They recorded a 10-song album, but wanted to re-record it. Before they could get around to it, though, something happened and it never went through. Some say the label fell apart, some say the band split up. The name "Morella's Forest" (which was inspired by CS Lewis, according to Jason Martin) was then taken by another band, which miffed the brothers at first, but now they are all right with it.

The two brothers tried another band together. At first they called it "Love Children" but it was changed to "Dance House Children" when they signed to Blond Vinyl Records. This was Ronnie's first effort at electronic music, and his first synthesizer was an Ensoniq ESQ-1. The Dance House Children recorded two albums, "Songs and Stories" in 1991, and "Jesus" in 1992.

Now the controversy begins. Jason split at this point and went off to form Starflyer 59⁴. Jason had been working on a handful of guitar songs on the side while helping with the Jesus album, and when Brandon Ebel⁵ heard and liked an early demo, Jason turned to pursue his own music project. Ronnie released another album with his sister, Amy, in 1993 and it was supposedly Dance House Children's "Rainbow Riders Beautiful Dazzling Music Number One". But many fans thought that Rainbow Rider was the new band name, and the album was simply "Beautiful Dazzling Music Number One". Ronnie used to protest that it was another Dance House Children album, but the name stuck.

And now you know the rest of the story.

The Instruments

Throughout the years, Ronnie has restricted himself more and more. His debut album, "Melody", used synthesizers, drum machines, and even some guitar. The most recent full-length album, "The White Songbook" used only analogue synthesizers⁶. The upcoming album, to be released early 2003, is supposedly being made without the use of MIDI. This merely means the sound will be less layered (as compared to some of the songs from "The White Songbook", which contained upwards of 30 layers), more simple, and lighter. The basics are the same though, from album to album; analogue synthesizers. All that changes is how he uses them and what he uses with them. For example, "We Are The Music Makers" was made mainly with two Roland MKS-80s.

Also, since "We Are The Music Makers" or so, he's been recording to Tascam DA recorder. For "Melody" he used an ADAT in one take. Normally, bands "multitrack" to produce all the layers⁷. Curiously, though, for "Melody", Ronnie set everything up and recorded it all at once on an ADAT⁸.

Now that we know what he uses, we can explore what he has used them for. Say, "Wheeee!" and run over to the Joy Electric Discography!