Conan: He is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, "What is the riddle of steel?" If I don't know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me. That's Crom, strong on his mountain!

Pretty Pleas started as a band called The Morse Code named not just after the dots-dashes communication symbol but as a homage to Inspector Morse and his rigid code of honor and dignity. We formed about two weeks before the Pandemic hit. After a long absence from performance and raising my little ones, I was ready to get back in the game and of course none of us could foresee how the pandemic would change the world. I met George through a mutual friend and we decided we got on, dug each other and then came Paolo, originally as our drummer and we had a co-lead singer, Kathi Harder. I loved that line up...we were like an indie Fleetwood Mac. Someday we will bring Kathi Harder on stage. That lady can sing!..

Eventually Paolo started enjoying the songs so much he switched to his natural instrument which is piano/keys. Which also started the long journey for a drummer that wouldn't be resolved for some time until B.B. Kong arrived. The tales we could tell of trying out drummers are pretty hilarious now, but back then it was one crazy frustration after another...

Paolo Tornitore grew up in Salerno, Italy and studied piano and from an early age was a film enthusiast. You can hear Morricone and a lot of classic film soundtrack work in his writing. His piano and keyboard playing took him all over Europe playing in different bands. Paolo, George, Kathi and I instantly bonded and some of the earliest songs we worked on together feature on In Circles and Lines. Aeromancer will always be the song that brought us really close together. It was that first song that we knew we had something with. Another's Cup was also another song we did as well as The Watcher. As time went on and we suffered the masking and the lock downs and the "can we rehearse?" or "is it not allowed?" ...Those truly were dark days but they tempered us like a knife. Kathi, went on sabbatical to Ireland and she's still there. Paolo got a great opportunity to head the Music department at a private school in Vienna and wanted to focus on that and develop his own band, Away For Awhile who played with us at Kramladen last year.

George and I have always missed Paolo and after a couple of years we ran into him and started talking about the record we were working on and how we need some new parts and he was definitely more available now timewise and we told him about our situation and how we'd love him to come in and play on some songs. He came into the studio with all of his parts already recorded against the tracks we sent him. Always remember how lucky you are when you work with talented people that have their you know what together.....we stitched them into the material and viola! Instant Beauty....As I wrote yesterday, Jasmin Nagl brought her magic...and Paolo brought his. He has a real modernity to his style that blends with classic and timeless harmonic and melodic counterpoint. He has such a flair for subtle, deft parts as well as full on drop your jaw stuff. Some of my favorite things he does are barely audible but they add to the overall sonic landscape. The parts he put on things like Broke, Aeromancer, and The Watcher are just positively pastoral and compelling. He told us that whenever we are recording he'll be there and he also said he would do as many gigs with us as he can schedule wise. You will meet him at our album presentation on September 21st at Kramladen. So most of the time over the next years you will see us with Paolo. He's a super special honorary member of Pretty Pleas working in a partnership with us as co-Arranger, guitarist, keyboardist and always as a dear friend. We like Paolo so much and you are going to adore his playing.

Oh...and Paolo and I share a deep love for cinema but particularly two films: John Milius' Conan, The Barbarian (The Riddle of Steel!) and John Boorman's Excalibur.

Merlin: "Now look, I once stood exposed to the Dragon's Breath so that a man could lie one night with a woman. It took me nine moons to recover. And all for this lunacy called, "love", this mad distemper that strikes down both beggar and king. Never again.".....but yes Merlin has returned!