WHO IS ROO?

Roo (aka Romain Chapus), is a French musician/ producer based in Helsinki, Finland.

He started electric guitar in the early 90's at age 15 under Satriani’s musical influence. Former student of LAURENT BRONDEL, he graduated from MUSIC ACADEMY INTERNATIONAL (former C.M.C.N-France) at 20. He worked after as a guitar instructor and joined differents bands and projects from acoustic duets to progressive metal... He toured around France and recorded a self produced MCD with Metal-Funk band X'Indies.
Moved to center France to work in a music school as fulltime instructor (l'AtelierMusical) while performing with different local bands and projects. Back to Paris area, Roo had soon a break with music untill he moved to Finland. Then he started from zero in the samples and loops world of Electronic music. Encouraging start with one track reviewed by home-music’s reference magazine Computer Music and released as well on the cover DVD. Roo get back into guitar playing in 2004 composing and performing in different projects.
In 2006, he was hired by STAY HEAVY RECORDS band's CODEON as a session guitarist and toured the finnish metal venues around the country. In december 2006 Roo launched his official website www.rooguitar.com and while publishing columns,LESSONS (at GuitarMasterClass.net) and instrumental demos on the internet.
In 2007, he released with Shred Academy an instructional DVD "Creative Shred", followed soon by two CD methods and developing a guitar trainer CD-rom program: "66 licks" co-featuring well known neo-classical shredder Joe Stump. The amount of published works and contacts increased which led to endorsement deals in 2008 with SantaCruzLightWave, BrossardPicks and Elixir strings. As band's works were getting quiet, Roo decided to eventually nail down his solo album.
He hired TONI PAANANEN (Malpractice-Spinefarm records) on the drums and produced a Heavy-groovy instrumental album: "Guitar Without a Cause", mastered at legendary Finnvox Studio (Nightwish-ChildrenOfBodom)...
Performing now as a genuine solo artist, Roo found the support of new endorsers, Mayones Guitars and StanHinesley Custom Pickups. 2009 was spent working on his record label project: MAD GUITAR RECORDS to support the production of a modern rock compilation: "Melodic Soloists" featuring 17 instrumental artists...
Roo has performed live in France, Finland and Estonia.

Roo's instrumental album
"Guitar Without a Cause" (RGM2008)

Copyright 2008 Juha Siirilä ©

So, what is Roo?

My personal project, instrumental guitar songs in Metal/Funk style with some Fusion and Country's influences. So far, most of my musical experience has been playing in other guys projects some music in a lot of different styles. I always had this "standby idea" of recording instrumental songs but I never believed having enough good material and skills to do something I'd be proud of. Nevertheless, I jammed a lot and get frustrated to find sometimes good chops and not using them. In 2004, after a comeback into guitar music, I eventually decided to write down and record my favorite licks. It wasn't easy to change my jams into full songs that would make sense to me. I didn't want to play two cool licks and then fill the rest with a dull and empty melody. About one year later, I saw live finnish shredder Elias Viljanen. I felt at this very moment that I had to go for it now..." I try to mix hybrids styles and techniques like chicken-picking and tapping. Lead guitars with both clean and heavy tones. I like Moderato/Allegro tempos, so my melodies go quite fast. I like also weird scales/intervals so it can results some kind of humor.