DAN FRITZ & TARA LYNN FRITZ
Founders of BBP
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With a combined 50+ years in the music business, Dan & Tara have decided to share that experience either teaching or facilitating the music dreams of others.
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Dan has been in bands performing either on keys or as the lead singer where he truly shines, with his better known projects being the 90's alt Christian rock band Johnny Q Public being his most successful-who was in rotation on MTV when they were still playing music videos-and for which he's most known who toured internationally, and was a founder and 10-year member the well-known local 80's cover band, Machine Gun Symphony. Dan was also the founder of SongPull, a songwriting forum which took off all across the US leading to over 1800 original songs written by those who were up to the challenge of writing a new song every 30 days.
Dan is passionate about songwriting, and that may just be his forte here at BBP. It's unknown just how many songs he has written, but you can bet that each one has the same attention and dedication as the next. Dan has two sons, Elvis and Bono. Yes, you read that right. Elvis has become quite the performer at the young age of 16. He was in the local band, The Verbing Nouns for four years singing lead, playing guitar and keys, and has now written a soon-to-be-released album of original music which he, along with Dan have produced here. Bono, who is only 9, is discovering his own chops, and says that he will be in his own band soon. We believe him.
Tara originally studied classical music vocal performance at the Conservatory of Music at University of Cincinnati, but wound up touring the US in a country band throughout the 90s before landing as the opening act for the legendary Statler Brothers for five years before their retirement. After owning a night club, staring as Patsy Cline in Springfield Little Theatre's production of "Always...Patsy Cline, singing and playing keys in a local 80's cover band, she started her own local band, Violet, with whom she performs today.
Tara has been teaching voice since 2011 to children, teens and adults and has found that it's become a passion of hers to help people young and old to sing better, sing with passion, sing to express, sing to challenge themselves or even those who are experienced performers who just want some pointers on bettering their craft. A noteworthy former student of Tara's is Chappell Roan, who you'll find on tour these days with Vance Joy.
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Dan & Tara have a vision; a mission, maybe even a calling for BackBeat Productions to be a creative place for anyone to learn, improve, discover, even dream, not just musically. They have a belief that music is powerful beyond what we all know and love about it. BackBeat was literally built by Dan and Tara as a haven to be creative; whether it's making music, photography, graphic design or any other creative outlets you can think of and wish to share this incredible environment.
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Dan has also shared his creative skills with many as the owner/operator of Fritz Designs & Concepts since 2001. FDC is a custom cabinet company, but really they can make just about any kind of cool stuff out of wood. Tara has spent her "day hours" at FDC since 2013.