Joe Purrenhage

Biography

Joe Purrenhage grew up outside the Detroit area where he picked up a great interest in music including classic rock and jazz/blues. A short stint in the Air Force allowed him to come in contact with many musicians with different infuences and styles. Formal training was minimal with a couple of years of piano lessons at a young age and percussion in the high school band. However, he started to teach himself everything from bass and guitar to keyboards and synthesizer programming with a verocious appetite for knowledge.

After the Air Force, Joe focused on starting an all original band with some friends and had some limited success with a pop/rock band called "Earthbound". In the early '90s, Joe met Marcus McGlown and a musical friendship was started that continues today.

Marcus and Joe were looking to start something that had a little more of the '70s fusion flavor to it and called in an old friend Craig Wisper to start what was the seeds to the modern fusion group Fuze. Many a Saturday Night Jam started and all boundries dropped for the improvisational approach to music which allowed a unique blend of rock and jazz to emerge as the musicians became intimately familiar with each other.

By 2000, the jams had become somewhat of a regular thing with recordings and webcasts going out over the internet. After a few different bass players tried out with the band, Doug Nolls was brought in with his custom basses and taurus pedals to increase the rock foundation to the band. Doug was somewhat new to the idea of improvisation and jazz but was eager to enhance his skills.

As the band became tighter and more songs developed, the band was also building a studio slowly as they acquired the equipment and soon a CD was released with the help of the internet and sites like mp3.com. The band garnered great success on the famous music portal with well over 100,000 plays over a three year period.

Fuze continues to create new music and self-produces their works to keep the fusion spirit alive in the 21st century.