From Paul Hanover:
As a child my early memories are of walking to my grandmothers from school and sitting down with her at the piano, singing and playing songs. Music was deep in my soul.
We never had a piano in our house, but we always had a guitar lying around. I started playing guitar and fell in love with it. It was so cool being able to express myself in musical terms.
Forming bands, playing in bands was what it was all about in the early days in Portland. It was fun playing in bars when I was 17, even though I had to take my breaks outside. I played in and out of bands until I was in my mid twenties. Then a major tragedy struck my family, with the untimely death of my younger sister. It turned my world upside down and made me reevaluate my position in life. So I thought a more professional line of work was what was important.
This couldn’t have been further from the truth. After a decade or so, and finding myself in a relatively successful position, I took another look at my life and realized how empty I felt. The thing that was missing was the music that I loved to create. So I started writing and playing again. First at open mics and small coffee shops. I noticed that my music was touching people. So I saved some money and produced my first solo CD, “Know Your Soul” which was released in the Fall of 2002. The more I played, the more I realized that it was music that filled me up and fulfilled me. There is a cliché “do what you love, and everything else will follow”. So in the Fall of 2003, I left my day job to immerse myself completely in writing and performing my music. Two years later, I’m still doing it full time. Though I’m not a wealthy man, my life is richer than it’s ever been. My second CD, Under Your Skin is being released in Nov 2005. Check it out and let us get “Under Your Skin”.

The Issaquah Press ran this great story about the Paul Hanover Band in the A&E section.