b i o g r a p h y

Tony Carey is a musician whose career bears little resemblance to the rock-n-roll lifestyles of other artists. He belongs to that rare breed of artist who goes their own way. Not concerned with enhancing his own image, Carey focuses instead on keeping up with his own high standards. His enduring success including numerous hits on the American and German charts, guest appearances with top acts such as Rainbow, and many impressive film soundtracks, proves that he is on the right path. Tony Carey has also produced artists such as Joe Cocker, Natacha, Milva and Anne Haigis. But how does all of that work? It works perfectly if you "live" music with body and soul, says Tony. And his life is music.

Tony Carey was born on October 16, 1953 to Paul and Laura Carey in Turlock, California. Tony's talent for music virtually began when he did! At the age of seven, he had taught himself all of the Christmas carols on a piano that was in his home. After three years of "tinkering" around on it, his father arranged for him to have lessons. By the time he was 11, he was messing around with the stringed bass which he also studied for seven years while also developing his guitar playing and singing.

Tony's first "open air festival" as he puts it, occured on the patio of his home while playing with several of his friends at a birthday party.

Because of his father's job as a project manager, Tony and his family moved to Connecticut during his teen years and went to high school there. Blessings was an act that Tony got into with two of his friends after he got out of high school that managed to get a record contract with ABC Records in 1972. It was a time where he could either have joined the Army or formed a group and since this was during the time of Vietnam, he decided to stay with his music. Their record deal took them to Hollywood where they spend 7 months in the studio recording this project which was never finished.

Tony was in a rehearsal studio called SIR, in Hollywood, which was very big in the 70s, and Tony was in there with his Blessings at the same time that Ritchie Blackmore was in town to recruit members for Rainbow. Led Zepplin was also there. And one of his scouts heard Tony playing the organ through the door of the studio and asked him to audition. Tony was offered the job and played keyboards for Rainbow's Rising record, which is one of the most popular Rainbow records to this day.

Tony's tenure with Rainbow was somewhat rocky at best. According to Tony, he left Rainbow during the recording of what became the Long Live Rock And Roll record at the Honky Chateau outside of Paris, France because of Ritchie's tendency to be overly dramatic.

After he left Rainbow, he went back to Hollywood where he was living at the time and played with Budy Miles and the Road Runners, and began writing songs that ended up on his first two records in Europe. He also played cocktail piano for a while. In 1978, he got a telegram for a friend of his that he had met on tour with Rainbow asking him to come to Munich, Germany to play piano for a record that he was working on. In August of 1978, Tony packed his bags and moved to Germany.

Tony showed up at the studio in Germany for the session and at that point met Peter Hauke (How-ka). Peter allowed Tony to come in and record in the studio for free when it was not being used for actual recording sessions. He recorded tapes and tapes of piano records.

The instrumental records were never designed to be instrumental records. Tony always begins writing with the music. The instrumental records are essentially albums where the words were never sung. Two of these albums, T.C.P. and Yellow Power received acclaim from the critics and subsequently sold quite a few copies. One of these instrumental records is a version of Why Me? without drums. X-Records was a label which was owned by Peter Hauke.

Tony wrote and recorded his first solo record, which was self-titled, with Peter and released it on the up and coming Rocshire Records owned by Rocky & Shirley Davis. I Won't Be Home Tonight became Tony's first hit single in the United States. Unfortunately for him, Rocshire Records was the front end of a money-laundering scheme involving Hughes Aircraft, Shirley Davis' employer. Over the course of her employment, millions of dollars were embezzled from Hughes to Rocshire. Eventually, the I.R.S. and Hughes Aircraft shut down Rocshire.

Meanwhile, the Planet P Project was coming into being. The actual Planet P reference came from a book. The picture, in fact, from the first record came from a graphic artist in a catalog which was simply purchased for $2,500. The reason for the Planet P Project was because that Tony was writing so much music and recording so much that he wanted to get it all out. Because of the exclusive nature of record contracts, he had to become two artists in order to be able to release them. He was signed as Tony Carey to one label and as Planet P to another. This is also why he isn't in any of the videos for Planet P.

About this time, Tony was wanting to record a concept record and came up with the concept for Pink World, a story which is about a boy who goes swimming in a waste dump and develops these super powers. The story left open for a sequel. So at the same time Tony was cutting his next solo record for MCA Records and working on Pink World at the same time. In 1984, Tony released Some Tough City, his best selling United States album to date. The released was followed up with an ambitious 150-date tour including being an opening act for Night Ranger during a stint through Texas.

During the next year, thing would begin to take a different turn after the release of his follow-up to Some Tough City titled Blue Highway. The relationship between Tony and Peter Hauke had become strained because of the nature of the business dealings that had been taking place. Tony had the contract with Peter Hauke, and Peter had the contract with MCA. Later that year, Tony severed his ties with Peter Hauke.

Tony then began getting into producing artists and has produced many artists since that time. He has also continued to record and release records on a variety of labels in Europe. Tony's most well known work in Germany comes from the soundtrack to the Wild Western Inclusive television program and Bedtime story.

Since February 2003, the thoroughbred-musician, Tony Carey, has been touring - together with the brilliant musicians Pascal Kravetz (who worked with Bruce Springsteen) and Martin Hämmerle. Tony exults not only the audience (people from all over the world: South-Africa, USA, Sweden, England, France, Norway) but the journalists, too .

Tony has been very busy with many projects while fans (and those who have become curious by reading the reports of the last concerts) are waiting for the next concerts. At Christmas 2003 Tony released a third Planet P album as a free download from his official website: www.truebeliever.de this is the first album in an ambitious trilogy.

Tony continues to produce, write and record music in his own studio. Convinced his best days are yet to come!