About

Sec Pie is the brainchild of musician/geek J.C. Coleman, who has been making music since before he can remember. “I remember singing songs at a very young age that I had made up, but I don’t remember having created them,” he notes.
He had music lessons throughout his childhood, and played a variety of instruments – mostly piano.
He was also an early adapter of writing music on a computer using standard musical notation. “I was trained with notes on a staff, so that’s how I work. I use software that will let me see music as music, and allow me to drop notes on a staff.”


While attending the University of Washington, he was a volunteer DJ for the campus new music station, KCMU. During his tenure he was at times responsible for more than half of the stations production of recorded promotional announcements. It was there he began putting his musical talents to work, writing and recording his own background music for his spots.
“I had bought a Casio, and used it along with a few toys that I could program to make various noises. Banging on microphone springs made for interesting if unconventional percussion. The really cool thing about it was I got more airplay than legitimate artists.”
He had also acquired a rather used Roland Juno-60, which he cleaned up and recorded melodies and ideas to cassette.


He had planned to release a 4-song EP, even going as far as recording a couple songs, but the project was shelved indefinitely due to lack of time and resources.
Then life got in the way. School. Work. Relationship. House. British sports car. And various other hobbies and interests all took up his time and focus.
Fast forward 15 years—
“I had been wanting to get back into music and I found the right type of software that let me play the way I wanted to. I started writing and before too long I had a couple hours’ worth of songs. I set up my home studio and started recording.”


“It’s great for composition, but as recording software it’s rather mediocre.”
After the tracks were initially mixed it was just a matter of choosing what was going to be on the CD. “I wanted a variety of styles. There’s plenty of one type or another, and I didn’t want to bog the release down with more of the same, so I decided to include different things – even if I thought other songs were better.”

The name Sec Pie is shortened from Homeland Security Pie, a vague reference to the billions spent on national security initiatives since 9/11. “I’d heard a pundit on CNN quip that it’s a lot of money that did nothing more than offer a false sense of security to the American people.”