After years of honing his craft, Zak Claxton's debut album is finally underway. "I really am looking forward to getting this out there," he says. "I think it's safe to say that after 20 years of playing on everyone else's records and in everyone else's bands, I'm pretty psyched that my own thing is finally happening."

Zak started on piano before he turned four years old, and took up the guitar before he was seven. By the time he hit high school, he was already performing in local bands, playing countless backyard parties because he was too young to get into the clubs in Los Angeles' South Bay area where he'd eventually perform regularly. Spending his late teens and early 20s getting trained at Berklee College of Music and Musicians Institute, he eventually got his degree in music from Cal State University. As a songwriter, session musician, live musician and audio engineer, Zak's services were always highly in demand. And yet...

"I always felt like there was something missing," he says now with a grin. "I never got the chance to do a project start to finish that truly represented my vision."

He has now. Zak Claxton, his self-titled debut due for release in Fall 2008, represents a lifetime of accumulating musical influences and developing an experienced yet fresh outlook that's refected in his songwriting.

Zak has built a loyal following comprised of the people in his area who have heard his progress as an artist, along with a myriad of fans from his regular live music performances in the 3D Internet environment of Second Life.