"I started putting together the material for my first album about one year ago. I had some ideas for a couple of songs and I decided to put to use my home studio and record the tracks. Although my main instrument is guitar, I also play a number of other instruments, so just for fun I recorded some bass and drums tracks. After I played back the recordings they sounded good enough to go on a real record, so I arranged and re-recorded all the parts. In the mean time I felt inspired to writing the lyrics for the songs, and since I was already done with everything else, I decided to also sing." "As I started working on this project I realized that a dam had been broken and the music was flowing out of control as never before. In a few weeks I had put together ten songs, but it took months before I could complete the mixing and mastering with professional engineers. Paradoxically I ended up mixing and mastering the last five songs I wrote rather than the first five. I decided to release the tracks in a mini-album while the rest of the project is getting completed. I did not have any other choice that calling this album Side B, just like in the good old times of the vinyl records. I hope you'll enjoy it." Merlino was founded in 1993 by Andrea Del Grosso in Lake Como, Italy where he was born and raised. The band included his brother Gabriele on bass and his friend Alessandro on vocals. During the Italian years the band went through a number of drummers, never filling the position permanently. In 1997 the band got signed by a British producer at Polygram, but the project abruptly halted before the recording was completed and the album was never released. After this episode the band fell apart and Andrea pursued his own musical career. In 2002 he left Italy and moved to California where he lives. Beside composing music he also owns and run a business, DelGrosso Design in Santa Rosa, CA.