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Who Is Zeptae?
Zeptae is an award winning photographer, publisher, producer, and musician.
Zeptae - The Biography
Zeptae was born on May 22nd, 1970 in Hamilton, Ontario Canada as Patrick David Lashmar.
Zeptae's creative genius started to emerge around age six. He would spend hour after hour creating and playing music on the family piano. Although he had not yet had any formal music training, his music skills were quite evident to anyone listening. While most children his age would ask for the latest toy or game for Christmas, Zeptae pleaded with his parents for piano lessons. His parents obliged and signed him up. As luck would have it, Zeptae would be assigned a music teacher who really understood Zeptae's creative side. His teacher, Anna Batista, recognized and embraced his creativity. She would divide up Zeptae's music lessons into two halves; the first half of the lesson was for regular and structured music instruction, while the second half of the lesson was used to help Zeptae explore, expand, and refine his own musical compositions. Zeptae would later say that she was the most important musical influence in his life. Zeptae would spend his formative years practicing and studying his music craft.
By the age of sixteen, Zeptae was teaching music at The College of Contemporary Music after school and on weekends. He would also start to play in local bands. Zeptae developed quite a reputation in the local scene and he played in several bands simultaneously. His teenage years were busy with school, teaching music, playing in bands, and normal teenage adventures. Zeptae had assumed that he was going to become a school teacher and always thought of music as a hobby. That was, until he saw a U2 concert on October 3rd, 1987. Zeptae would later say that being at that concert would change everything for him. "Something happened to me at that concert," Zeptae said, "I can't really explain it but there was a powerful energy - at that very moment I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, and that was to make music." Suddenly, school and teaching music seemed not so important to him. Zeptae now had focus and direction and would embark on his music career.
Zeptae finished school in 1988 and took a job working at a popular collectable record store. He was exposed to a huge variety of music across every genre while working at the record store. Buying and selling rare and collectable records was enjoyable for Zeptae but it was really just a way to pay the bills while he worked on his music career.
Zeptae had carved out a reputation for himself as a great local keyboard player but he longed for the excitement of being in the front of the band. Zeptae bought himself a guitar, an amp, and a microphone and set out to form a band. The only problem was, Zeptae didn't really know how to play guitar or sing, but he wasn't going to let that stop him! Over drinks one night, Zeptae mentioned his plan to long time friend Roger Vallve. Roger thought that was a great idea. He said that he'd love to play bass in a band someday but he didn't know how to play nor did he have a bass guitar. A light bulb went off in Zeptae's head. Zeptae worked out an arrangement with Roger where Zeptae would buy Roger a bass guitar if Roger would play in his new band. Roger eagerly accepted this offer. The band now consisted of a bass player who didn't know how to play bass and a guitar player/singer who didn't know how to play guitar or sing - what were the odds this band was going anywhere? Zeptae pitched his new band idea to a drummer he had played with in a local blues band. "I don't know why Bob (Bunting) agreed to play with us." said Zeptae, "He was a really talented drummer and certainly didn't need the aggravation of being in a band with two teenagers who didn't really know how to play their instruments. I'm glad he did though!" With Zeptae on guitars and vocals, Roger and bass and Bob on drums, the band "The Reflection" was born.
The Reflection booked their first gig at a very popular live music establishment. "That bar didn't usually book unknown bands," said Zeptae, "but the promoter of the bar used the record store I worked at for a lot of promotion. I suppose I weaseled us the gig." Show time came, the bar was full, the lights came up, and just about the worst musical performance in the history of musical performances began. The guitars were out of tune and so was Zeptae's voice. By the end of the first set about two thirds of the audience had walked out. When the band came on for their second set, Roger threw his bass guitar in the air with the intention of catching it, but he missed. The bass tumbled off the stage and onto the floor, disintegrating into hundreds of pieces. Zeptae knocked over his microphone stand. The sound technicians jumped on stage and Zeptae and Calvin, the new guitar player in the band, got into a fist fight right on stage in front of everyone. The few people who were left cleared out in about one second flat. The band decided to break up while packing up what was left of their musical instruments. The 80's were almost over and so was Zeptae's music career. Or was it?
Zeptae and Reflection guitar player Calvin Hager would form a new music group. They enlisted drummer Cindy Le Maitre, who Calvin had played with in an earlier band, and Daniel Wintermans, who was a very talented bass player they knew as the bartender at a local watering hole. Vampire Sex Chain was born. At first, Vampire Sex Chain had a hard time getting gigs, perhaps because of the disastrous debut of The Reflection, but their independent music recording was extremely popular in local 'goth' scene. Zeptae was frustrated by not being able to book his band into any venues. In true Zeptae fashion, if no one would help, he would do it himself. So he went about booking a hall, printing and selling tickets, and arranging for all the stage equipment, plus booking several other bands to appear in the show with Vampire Sex Chain. It wasn't all smooth sailing. Zeptae had never promoted a concert before and there were some issues with city hall at the eleventh hour – like the fact that he didn't have a permit to host a concert at the venue. Here was this teenager, negotiating face to face with city hall administrators, trying to work out a solution. Zeptae negotiated all afternoon, and, in the end, he succeeded. The show went on as planned with a few concessions about increasing security at the venue. The show sold out and was an incredible success! Vampire Sex Chain played a great gig, the audience was engaged and enthusiastic, and local press gave the show rave reviews. Word spread fast. Almost overnight all the clubs that refused to book Vampire Sex Chain suddenly wanted them in their venues. Within a couple of months the independent Vampire Sex Chain recording was charting on college and university stations. The band was playing bigger and bigger shows and traveling farther away from home. Just as Vampire Sex Chain caught the attention of the recording industry, disaster hit. Calvin, Daniel, and Cindy didn't like the direction Zeptae was taking the band. "The band got together for a meeting." recalls Zeptae, "It was very bizarre and quite caught me off guard. The rest of the band informed me that they were all quitting Vampire Sex Chain to form their own group. I guess that was somewhat easier for them than trying to kick me out of the band. At any rate, by the end of the meeting I had a band in name only. I had worked very hard at getting the band name recognized and thought it was a shame to just have it all end. I enlisted Roger from the Reflection days as well as several drummers including Bob Bunting to try and keep Vampire Sex Chain alive. However, the magic that was Vampire Sex Chain just wasn't there without the original members. It wasn't too long until I finally ended Vampire Sex Chain." Zeptae, feeling a little disillusioned with what had happened took a break from music for awhile.
By the mid 90's Zeptae got his music groove back. He and Roger wrote twelve songs then proceeded to search for a drummer. Chris De Basseggio would be added to the band. This group would at first be called Acrylic and later would change their name to Syringe. The first Syringe recording, called Green Baby, met with success. Again Zeptae was back, charting on college and university radio stations. Syringe was still an independent band but now they had distribution with major retailers. Zeptae and Roger had come a long way since the Reflection days. Their shows were now polished and successful. Syringe played in Canada and in the U.S. in support of their recording. Chris would be replaced on drums by Joe Scaduto in 1997. With Joe on the team, Syringe recorded a few songs for The Forgotten Rebels tribute CD. At the same time, Syringe was asked to contribute a cover song to the Daniel Lanois (Producer: U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, etc.) tribute CD. The boys headed into Grant Avenue Studio (Daniel Lanois' old studio) and recorded their version of Whole Lotta Love To Give. "I remember the person who put the project together going way out of his way to call me to tell me how much he liked our version, but, for some reason, whoever had the last word decided not to include the track on the album. It wasn't until a few months later that I realized I had flubbed the lyrics in the recording. The line was supposed to be: 'Like Wasaga Beach on the first of July' (which is Canada Day) but I sang 'Like Wasaga Beach on the fourth of July' (which is Independence Day in the U.S.) -- quite a faux pas since we were supposed to be
honouring this great Canadian musician and producer! At least I can laugh about it now." chuckles Zeptae. Syringe went back to Grant Avenue Studio to record a three track E.P. called Superstar Explosion. This was their best work to date. Again they played shows, did what seemed like an endless amount of radio interviews and put together a rather low budget video for their song "Free". During this period, Zeptae had some other music projects on the go. By the late 90's, Syringe's popularity had hit a plateau. In 2000 Zeptae decided Syringe had run its course and he ended the band.
During the Syringe period, Zeptae was also busy working on a personal recording project called Choke On Candy. The first, self-titled Choke On Candy recording was dark and brooding. Once again Zeptae had a strong 'goth' following. By the time Zeptae was ready to record the second project, he had been introduced to techno music. This second recording, the aptly titled "Choke 2" was Zeptae's first foray into electronica. This would be the least successful of the Choke On Candy recordings. By the third recording, entitled Disco Sex, Zeptae had a firm grasp of electronic music. Choke On Candy made some headway with DJs on the West Coast and in Europe -- especially with the single Disco Sex. One day in 2000, Zeptae would write a Choke On Candy song unlike any other song he had written before. "It (Stalker) was screaming to me for a rapper. I can do a lot of things in music, unfortunately rapping isn't one of them." proclaimed Zeptae, "I posted my musical dilemma on a local musicians chat/bulletin board. Literally moments after posting the message, Rob and Fran LaMothe contacted me about a rapper they were working with named Devious01. Fran put Zeptae in touch with Devious01. Zeptae and Devious01 would work out an agreement where Devious01 would rap on the Choke On Candy single Stalker (along with rappers Nikki T and Strike). In exchange, Zeptae would produce some tracks for Devious01. Stalker would be the last song from Choke On Candy. Zeptae recalls, "Stalker was a great song and I was really proud at what we (Zeptae, Devious01, Strike, Nikki T) had done. I had just ended Syringe and I was pretty much done with Choke On Candy. It was nice to go out on a high note." Over the span of one song, Zeptae would go from alt. rock musician to hip hop producer.
Stalker was just the beginning of Zeptae's work in hip hop. As Zeptae and Devious01 had previously agreed, Zeptae set about producing an entire album for Devious01. He would produce tracks for several other local rappers as well. One of these rappers was Nikki T. "I remember meeting Nikki T like it was yesterday." says Zeptae, "I was meeting with a group of 'thugish' looking rappers that I was working with, when this sixteen year old blonde girl walked in. Her
demeanour was quiet and I at first thought (wrongly) shy. The other rappers were talking her up big time. I almost thought they were setting me up for a joke, that is, until she started rapping. I just about fell over backwards off my chair! This, at first, very quiet looking blonde teenage girl started spitting rhymes faster and with more aggression than I'd ever heard anyone else do before. She had no sooner finished spitting her lines when I told her I was going to produce an entire album for her. I probably worked harder on that recording than on any other recording I'd done up to that time." The Nikki T album was received very well. It even landed her a guest spot on the Ananda Lewis Show. Zeptae was coming off of the success of Syringe and Choke On Candy. He had made two full albums for Nikki T and Devious01. All the while running a rapidly growing publishing corporation. All these pressures would start to catch up with him. Zeptae simply couldn't keep up with all the demands being placed on him from so many different sources. "I told the rappers I was no longer going to produce for them. I had already finished with my rock bands. I suppose I was burnt out between the publishing company and the demands of the music world. I remember announcing that I was retiring from the music industry. Most of my friends and family were, to put it mildly, shocked and dumbfounded. I had been making music since I was six years old. Here I was, a couple decades later packing it all in." said Zeptae, "For the first time in my entire life I had no music projects or commitments. I felt as though a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders - I know that sounds cliché, but that's honestly what it felt like. I had always thought I might be interested in photography but I never had the time to give it a try. This was my opportunity to try my hand at this relaxing hobby. Now that I look back on my thoughts about getting into photography it makes me laugh how I thought it was just going to be a little hobby of mine."
Zeptae purchased himself a little digital point-and-shoot camera. At first, he would mostly do landscape photography. One day, one of Zeptae's female friends told him that she wanted to try her hand a posing nude. She said she didn't have any experience nor did she have a photographer, but she very much trusted Zeptae as a friend and asked him to take some shots of her nude. Zeptae obliged. Zeptae said, "Back then my photography skills were pretty raw but people responded very positively to the images I was posting online ... at least enough that it encouraged me to keep at it." Another friend of Zeptae who did have some experience in nude modeling saw the first pictures he had done and asked if he would do a photo shoot with her as well. Again, Zeptae happily obliged. Eventually Zeptae would meet Julia Busato, now well known as a world class photographer in her own right. "Julia and I were pretty green back then." remembers Zeptae, "We went to my family's cottage and Julia posed for me. A couple of weeks later we snuck into an abandoned psychiatric hospital and did some photography in the decaying building. I bought myself my first SLR Camera. Back then I didn't really know how to use it and I shot everything using the camera's automatic setting. One day, Julia signed us up to attend a professional photographer, model, make-up artist meet and greet. One of the photographers invited me to use his strobes (flash photography). I had no idea how to make my camera work with the strobes, I didn't know what aperture, shutter speed or even what ISO was. I was completely embarrassed. I'd ever been so embarrassed actually. I was not about to let that happen again. So I read and learned everything I could about photography." Once Zeptae had a firm grasp on the fundamentals of photography, he needed some practical, hands on experience. Luckily for Zeptae, he had no shortage of models willing to pose for him. Slowly, over time, Zeptae's photography skills got better and better. Zeptae grins and explains, "I always start a photo shoot by asking myself, 'how can I make this better than my last photo shoot?' There is always something I can do better. It's a matter of being able to look at yourself with a critical eye ... that and I'm mildly O.C.D. (obsessive compulsive disorder)." It wouldn't be long before Zeptae was receiving awards and accolades for his photographic work. Zeptae, the amateur photographer with the little point and shoot camera, had come into his own.
Zeptae the photographer would soon become Zeptae the rebellion leader. By 2007 models were traveling from all over the world to be in a Zeptae photo shoot. He was getting commercial photography work. Zeptae had become one of the top members on a very popular online art community called deviantART. Zeptae's publishing company's success coupled with his new found photography success made him feel like he was on top of the world. All that changed one day in the spring of 2007. One of Zeptae's art works, entitled "Music Lover" got banned on deviantART. "There had been some, at least in my opinion, unfair art banning practices on that site." said Zeptae, "Works of mine as well as some of the works other members I knew, were having their art banned for frivolous reasons while other, far more 'bold' works were slipping by with no problems at all. There appeared to be some members, myself included, who were being targeted. For what reasons I have no idea, maybe it was that I was an outsider or unconventional. All I knew was that there was a lot of grumbling about this practice but no one was making a stand. As I always say, why complain when you can do something about it. I pulled down all of my art from that site. Doing so started a very well publicized uproar in the community. I have a good friend who was an admin on that site who was giving me the play by play details about the massive uproar I had started. Apparently the infighting was very vicious and ended up with a lot of people leaving the community. As much as I didn't like their polices, they were their polices and I could either accept it and stay or reject it and leave." No sooner had Zeptae left deviantART then he was offered a Director of the Nude Art Gallery position by another online art community called Storm Artists. Zeptae was honored by the job offer but he politely declined it. "The Storm Artist" community was very welcoming to me" said Zeptae, "but even on this site, not all of my work would be allowed. So, I decided to start my own online art community called Zeptae Nation. It's nice to be free of censorship. Censorship is one of my biggest pet peeves. What gives someone else the right to say what is and is not appropriate for me to read or view. I am a huge supporter of free speech ... even if that speech is against me!"
Zeptae would meet a model in 2007 who went by the name of Devilishlysweet. The two clicked immediately. "Elizabeth (Devilishlysweet) was interested in what I was doing with my photography. We were on the same page on just about every subject. I wasn't sure that I would ever meet someone who truly understood my eccentric ways, but she did. There was no way I was letting this one get away. So, while sitting on our back porch on a warm summer evening, I got down on my knee and I asked her to marry me. She said yes!" smiles Zeptae. Patrick David Lashmar (Zeptae) and Elizabeth Ann Abbott (Devilishlysweet) were married at their rural property on a beautiful fall day in the presence of their friends and family on October 20th, 2007. Zeptae was finally beginning to feel a sense of balance in his life.
With new found personal life balance, the ever creative brain of Zeptae has begun releasing new music. Drawing on his experience as a musician and as a producer, Zeptae is making his music available for free on an as-it-is-produced basis. "I enjoy recording music again." mused Zeptae, "I have a little recording studio set up in my home and I can write, record, and produce tracks at my leisure. I don't have to worry about making deadlines or even sales targets. I make music for the simple enjoyment of it, and, if anyone else enjoys it, that makes me happy too. I'm in a really good place in my life right now; my publishing career, photography career, music career, and my personal life are finally in perfect balance."
Zeptae is and continues to be one of the maverick creative geniuses of our time. What's next for Zeptae? There is a whole bunch of exciting things in the works for Zeptae ... but we're not going to spoil the surprises by telling you just yet!
Find out more about Zeptae on the web:
Zeptae's Web Presence
ZEPTAE.COM - The Official Web Site
http://www.zeptae.com/
ZEPTAE NATION - The Online Erotic Photographic Art Community
http://www.zeptaenation.com
ZEPTAE on MySpace - Zeptae's main MySpace Page
http://www.myspace.com/zeptae
ZEPTAE THE MUSIC on MySpace - Zeptae's latest music on MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/zeptaethemusic
MODEL BRIGADE - Zeptae's Model Brigade page
http://www.modelbrigade.com/zeptae
SYRINGE on MySpace - A band Zeptae was in during the 90's
http://www.myspace.com/syringethemusic
VAMPIRE SEX CHAIN on MySpace - A band Zeptae was in during the 80's
http://www.myspace.com/vampiresexchain
CHOKE ON CANDY on MySpace - Zeptae's Musical Side Project
http://www.myspace.com/chokeoncandy
XPEEPS - Zeptae's xPeeps page:
http://www.xpeeps.com/zeptae
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Zeptae's Photography & Awards
The Journal of the Mistress - (January 9, 2007)
Daily Deviation - deviantART (May 1, 2006)
 
Commercial Experience
Some of the models Zeptae has worked with include:
Demonica de Morte (Hamilton, ON)
Lucy Luck (Hamilton, ON)
Patchouli (Milton, ON)
Oibyrd (Toronto, ON)
Dee (Toronto, ON)
Elle Bot (Hamilton, ON)
Jessica (Hamilton, ON)
RavenGirl (Guelph, ON)
Malice Orchid (Cambridge, ON)
Victoria Leigh - formerly Alexis Rose (Conroe/Houston, TX)
FireKitten (Vancouver, BC)
Amberella (Toronto, ON)
Scarlette Rose (Toronto, ON)
BlackPearl (Guelph, ON)
Ms T. Wood (Hamilton, ON)
Evilyn (Waterdown, ON)
Ash (Hamilton, ON)
Suspiria Suicide (Halifax, NS)
RavenMaven (Halfax, NS)
Elizabeth Ann (Mount Pleasant, MI)
Lady (Hamilton, ON)
Holly Day (Kitchener, ON)
Jenny Jenna (Grimsby, ON)
Baillei (Toronto, ON)
Zeptae Trivia
See Zeptae's very first public appearance in the media.
Zeptae's photography was been banned on deviantART.com. The uproar that followed stirred up the art community.
Zeptae isn't the only famous person in his family. In fact, Sean and Scott Anderson from the rock band Finger Eleven are Zeptae's cousins.
Images of Zeptae
Zeptae's Music Projects & Discography |
