MARK TRUEY TRUEACK

(Vocals, Artistic Direction, Songwriter, Co-Production, UPF Founder)

The story behind ‘UPF- Planetary Overload’

After releasing the album ‘Fall in Love with the World’ (FILWTW) back in 2014 with Matt Williams, David Hopgood, Tim Irrgang and our friends in Europe; Guy Manning, Marek Arnold and Dan Mash, I decided to sit back and reflect on what we had achieved. The songs were strong, but they had a sense of Unitopia written all over them. 80% of the tracks were written by Sean Timms with my directional ideas, with many of the reviewers giving us positive appraisals – however, many of them were saying this was ‘Unitopia Mark II’ – which was not what I wanted to achieve. To sum it up, it is what it is and there are some wonderful moments on the album.

In 2011 when I started the idea for UPF (Hope) my original concept was to work with many artists who would write, perform, and arrange the songs under my artistic direction. In 2015 I decided that I wanted a new sound, and to work with new people who could offer a fresh approach that could make the sound a little more intricate. I presented my ideas to Steve Unruh who I had worked with on several of The Samurai of Prog albums, and he also appeared on Traveling Man (FILWTW). Steve loved the ideas and concept and soon we were busy writing some of the conceptual framework. Enter Julia Bradshaw; Julia and I had been friends for a few years and she accompanied UPF on our 2014 promotional tour in the UK. On our return to Adelaide we were discussing names for the next project and she told me about a book called Planetary Overload.

After reading the book and seeing how confronting it was I felt that this would be a great template that we could base some of the songs on. The writer’s wife, who is based in Canberra, gave us permission to use the name and content of the book, as her husband A.J. Michaels had passed away a few years earlier. It may sound a little odd, but when I read messages on various music comment boards, it’s very apparent that people love to share their points of view; in some cases feedback can be very constructive and help in making the music and the message much more important.

Our planet is not happy in so many ways; our climate is constantly changing, religious intolerance leads to conflict, bloodshed, and outright war in an already unstable social system, and our countries misunderstand each other, leading to mistrust and risk of further instability.

As the world and civilisation evolve, conflict appears more and more inevitable and our environment harder to live in as climate change takes its toll. If projects like ours can make a difference and if we can involve our friends and other lovers of music then we will have a better world.”

Having a unique voice, rich in character and tone has helped singer/songwriter Mark Truey Trueack to realise a life-long dream of a career in the music industry. From the mid 80’s to early 90’s, Mark worked on the other side of the industry gaining valuable insight & knowledge as a record company executive for EMI Music.

Also at that time, he pursued his passion for performing by re-creating a Genesis tribute show, ‘The Genesis Touch’. Highly regarded nationally, the group consistently played to packed houses.

While living in Sydney, Mark began his song-writing career with local producer, Matt Coxhead, penning two fine songs, ‘Time For Change’ and ‘This Life’. Returning to Adelaide in 1996, Mark was introduced to Sean Timms by a mutual friend, who noticed the similarities in their musical tastes and personality. After a night on the town & a few beers, the two began a song writing partnership that continues to this day.

Since the formation of Unitopia, Mark has also had several other opportunities to perform, most notably the John Lennon memorial concert on the anniversary of his death in late 2005. Although still working as an executive, Mark always hoped to one day make music his full time occupation as it was already his full time passion.

He is married to his wife of 36 years Cheryl, and they have two talented daughters, Holly (who has a cameo appearance on Justify) and Brittany. A keen surfer, Mark’s love of the sea is exemplified in the songs ‘Fate’ , ‘Inside The Power’, ‘Water’ and ‘Fall in Love with the World’.

As co-founder of Unitopia, Mark was integral part of the process, not only as a world class vocalist, innovative songwriter, creative co-producer and morale booster, but as a relentless driving force behind everything that Unitopia has achieved thus far. The passion he injects into his music is endless (as is his sense of humour!) and his knowledge of the music industry and record companies in particular has given Unitopia a wealth of knowledge from which to draw, making the journey forward an exciting one.

As the end of Unitopia became a reality in early January 2014, Mark had been working on a side project called “The HOPE” back in 2011 with Stephen Layton who was living in a remote area deep in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, in order to discuss some potential song ideas. Stephen’s undoubted song arrangement talents in combination of with Mark’s creative vision gelled perfectly.

Stephen had been working on a couple of projects with former Yes lead vocalist and composer, Jon Anderson (“Survival and other Stories” and the sequel to Jon’s classic “Olias of Sunhillow”) and he soon realised that perhaps there could be a real opportunity to bring the two voices of Jon and Mark together. Stephen contacted Jon Anderson and asked him if he would be interested in working on this project. The piece that was selected to test this exciting collaborative prospect was called “Water”.

“Fall in Love with World” was the first UPF release in 2014, containing over 60min of music that takes the listener on journey of self-discovery. The album was officially launched at the UK’s Summers End Festival in Autumn 2014. For the second album, a songwriting contest was sponsored by the band, and two albums worth of material were written, and are in the process of being arranged for the second UPF release, Planetary Overload (PO). It was decided to present PO in two parts: LOSS, and HOPE. By May 2018 the arrangements for Part 1: LOSS are nearly completed and being sent to the various musicians that are guesting on the album.

The other project Truey has been working on is ‘The Romantic’ with Frenchman Chris Lebled and Steve Unruh. They have already experimented with songs from the Unitopia and UPF catalogue with great results, and songs like This Time, The Great Reward and Fall in Love with the World have totally new soundscapes and presentation. Two new songs, New Beginnings, and Avalon of Love are also being written. The First Kiss will follow. A total of 12 songs will make up this album.

Mark has also contributed his vocal talents most recently to songs performed by The Samurai of Prog: Ghost Written (from On We Sail), and Heroes (from Archiviarum) and Oliver Rüsing (The Impossible), among others. He is also involved with  Alex Grata’s project, ‘Voices of Babylon’ in which a different version of the song Forgive me my Son will be featured than the one on Planetary Overload.