Toby Schuetgens (* March, 10th 1986 in Hamm, Germany) is an independent country rock artist. Toby is currently living on a tiny ranch in north germany, close to a place called "Wacken" that most heavy metal fans worldwide should know. Because wacken is the holy ground of world's largest heavy metal festival. On this tiny ranch he is living with his wife, he married in 2016, and a bunch of animals. For example two cattledogs as well as two chihuahuas. Next to them are also a couple cats and - of course - horses! And the horses have been one of the driving forces. For more than twenty years Toby is making his living with horses. At first he was, and still is, a western horse trainer. But the biggest income stream currently comes from the work as a farrier. Music is also a big part of his life, but it is not carrying a big part of the financial situation yet - maybe it will one day. So Toby is a country rock musician, living in the country side, on a ranch, with his wife and a couple animals, and he is working as a horse trainer and farrier. Influences that have shaped Toby Schuetgens Music Toby is really open to most genres as long as the music has a melody and meaningful lyrics. As a teenager he was really going through a lot of genres to find out what feels best to him. So he was a little bit into Hip Hop but a lot more into music with more guitars. From Rock over Punk to Heavy Metal. The first CD he has ever purchased from his own money was "Garage Inc." by Metallica. And the most impressive song to him was "Turn the page" and as well the original version by Bob Seger as the version of Metallica are still on Tobys favorite tracks. Another song that really has done a lot to him was Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The first time he heard this song was during the movie "Renegade" with Terence Hill. The next song that has been a milestone was The Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks. He was heading back to the ranch with his boss after visiting the colts with that big cheavy truck one day. It was dark and rainy and on the radio The Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks. This was something like a life-changing-moment. If you would just pick these three songs there is everything you need to frame Tobys music from today. What does Toby Schuetgens Music sound like? The most songs are kinda simple. Simple but true lyrics, simple chords, simple melodies. But all in all authentic. The sound of the guitars are as well like classic rock tunes, but also a little heavier as slightly going into metal but always with a tiny bit of country twang. The vocals on the recordings are a bit of these three genres too. Sometimes with a little more twang and sometimes it's a little more like the typical James Hetfield sound. Music that inspires Toby Schuetgens today Long story short: there is a lot of music out there Toby is inspired by. But it is actually more country rock tunes like music from Brentley Gilbert or Jason Aldean. Also artists like Aaron Lewis, Cory Marks, Cody Jinks or Jacob Bryant are kinda Idols for Toby. But next to all that inspiration it is always important to Toby to not copy anything. Even when it sometimes seems difficult he is always trying to stay himself and to find out what feels best to him. As well as he did as a teenager through all the genres. It feels always difficult to find a box where he and his music really fits into. Toby Schuetgens is now an independent country rock artist who writes and produces his own songs. He is now 36 years old and started to play guitar at the age of six. So there have been 30 years of music yet. But it has not been on the same level throughout the last 30 years. It all started with a classic education on the guitar. For six years he had lessons in a big music school. It was right to learn it this way from the beginning, but it felt not really good sometimes. So he changed to a private guitar teacher in a cold and wet basement rehearsal room for the next six years. That felt a lot more "Rock-n-roll". He played acoustic guitar, electric guitar and a little bass. During this time he played in a school band and he established a metal band with some friends. But both have not been really successful. At the age of 14 he started to write his own songs. And a little later he joined an acoustic-soul band what really has been a great time. But the highest priority were the horse and his work on different ranches what caused him to move a couple times and made it impossible to hold on with a band. During that time it was just playing at the bonfires and a couple solo gigs. What makes Toby's Career today? Toby is now kind of a recording artist. He is producing his own music in his own tiny recording studio. During all the years of playing guitar he always tried a little to record some guitar riffs and to track some vocals. But it has never been enough for a complete release. Only 2021 it all seems to fit together. Suddenly there was a possibility to publish own music to Spotify as an independent artist. That was a way to carry his music from the bonfire straight to the world wide web. What Toby did in 2021 was to pick some of his old recordings to figure out how this system works. And from the first release on and the impressive feedback he got, he was on fire again. That's why he started the next education: Toby is now on the way to become a professional audio engineer to get better results from the recordings over the mixing to mastering his own music. In his first year of publishing music Toby has released about 20 songs he has all recorded on his own. Played all the instruments himself and mixed the songs himself. One more important skill he has to learn is music marketing. Because music that has no listener is actually not existing. Everything built from skratch and boot strapped. No big budgets, no managers everything done with his own hands. And this might be just the beginning of a very long journey Toby had about 30 years of time to get everything up for what is coming next. He not just learned how to play an instrument he much more learned things about life. So many tiny stories to write songs about. With the new skills he is currently learning he can really tell a lot of beautiful stories throughout his music in the future. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Toby+Schuetgens">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.