Growing up in the south east (Raleigh, North Carolina) Phillip J. Hawley (Mr Demented) was mostly a fan of heavier music and spent most of his youth learning metallica riffs on guitar and listening to bands like sepultura, deftones, and cannibal corpse. Sitting on the beach playing and singing james taylor covers he grew comfortable playing in front of others (perhaps too comfortable. In school he was heavily into band during which time he mastered trombone and other brass instruments and later drums both in jazz band and marching. Never content with learning any one instrument he has been in bluegrass, Deathmetal, hardcore, jazz, and even super sickly artboy indie bands. After getting fed up with the girlfriend clashes, perpetual tardies, stupid excuses, and general f#$ked-upedness of being in bands, Mr. Demented was given a copy of acid pro and began experimenting with multitrack recording and beat making. As a joke he decided to write and record some rhymes. After showing them to a friend the friend couldn't shut up about how good it was and 10 years of battles, shows, and recordings later Mr. Demented is a thought provoking and complex Emcee and still a competent freestyler.

Again in the spirit of HAVING to learn each and every instrument that was available to him around 2001 Mr Demented locked himself in a room with a turntable, a mixer, a battle record, and a copy of DJ Qbert's DIY volume 1. He quickly joined the ranks with seasoned scratchers in his area and quickly caught up to them. Today he is one of the most available scratchers around and has scratched on so many albums and mixtapes it would be too many to try to mention. Mr. Demented's attention to technical detail earned him the rank of field specialist with Native Instruments. He has done and continues to do demonstration work for several music manufacturers. Over the years Mr. Demented has taken to finger drumming. He currently does things on his Native Instruments Maschine that drummers dream of being able to do. He has become an innovator and teacher of finger drumming technique and it shows in his live set. Mr. Demented has a little something for everyone musically and a live show that you will not soon forget.


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