Jerid Walters Music

Jerid was born in Englewood, Ohio, a small town outside of Dayton. At the age of 9 yrs old, he found an old dilapidated snare drum in the trash while riding his bike down the street. He took it home, refurbished it, then proceeded to teach himself drums by listening to and playing along with his favorite bands such as TOTO, KISS and many others. His earliest influence was Peter Criss of KISS and the “KISS Alive I” album and Neil Peart, “Moving Pictures.” He attended Northmont High School, playing in numerous garage bands throughout the area. He proceeded to play drums for another few years until switching to bass guitar, then electric guitar. Following the same path, he learned to play various instruments by ear, listening and copying his favorite musicians from albums. Remaining with electric guitar, he learned hundreds of songs by his favorite players such as Randy Rhoades, Eddie Van Halen, George Lynch and Alex Lifeson, just to name a few. Jerid continued playing in numerous garage bands throughout Dayton, Ohio. At about age 16, he replaced his friend Todd Crook, an amazing guitarist and friend, in a band called “Starstruck,” a cover band in Ohio. Discontent with playing cover songs, Jerid soon left the band to pursue writing original music. After graduating High School, Jerid moved to St. Louis, Missouri. He formed another cover band named, “Censored,” (see pic, 2nd from the left) then another band, “Diamondback.” Still dissatisfied playing cover music, Jerid again quit the bands in pursuit of other musicians whom wrote original music. With no such musicians in sight, Jerid made the decision to relocate to San Diego, CA. After about a year, Jerid was introduced to Terry Dow, a former musician himself. He would assemble an all original band and call it “Chain Gang.” After writing about a dozen songs, Chain Gang played a few shows around San Diego. A local radio station attended one of their live concerts, loved the music and requested more for radio play. After a couple of years, Jerid moved on to writing more original music as a solo artist. In 2010, Jerid decided to take a break from music and acquire a degree in Civil Engineering from San Diego State University. After graduating in 2014, he developed an Engineering and Architectural firm in San Diego. As CEO, he stayed for 11 years and, with the help of his wife, Elizabeth, developed the company into a medium-sized firm that is now run by Elizabeth Walters. In 2021, Jerid decided to get back into music full time. After picking up a guitar for the first time in decades, within 2 months he immediately wrote almost a dozen songs. Subsequently, he built a recording studio and began to record them. After recording only 3 songs, Jerid decided to attend Berklee College of Music to take a few classes on vocals and music production. After taking 6 classes, he decided to pursue a degree in “Music Composition for Film, TV and Games.” Graduating from Berklee in Summer 2025. Jerid lives in San Diego, just south of Los Angeles and is looking forward to collaborating with some great people either in L.A. or other locations. Jerid is interested in all genres of music. Even starting at an early age, he has always loved listening to classical music as well as Movie Soundtracks. Amongst his favorite composers are: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Handel, Haydn, Scarlatti, Schubert, Chopin, DeBussy, Greig, Verdi, Stravinsky, Mahler, Wagner, Berlioz and Ravel. His film composing style is highly influenced by these composers as well as film composers such as: Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Danny Elfman, James Horner, Howard Shore, Michael Giacchino, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Newton Howard. Jerid finds that writing on-the-spot, the first time he watches the film is the most crucial and most influential time. It produces the best, most successful film ideas and more often than not, full scores. He says, “The second I start to watch the film, the music automatically plays in my head, fully orchestrated and complete. I don’t watch a film numerous times and struggle to find a theme, a key, a leitmotif or the orchestration. It comes naturally.” It’s because of this, Jerid offers the option of bringing a mini-recording studio in a rolling case to the client’s location, complete with a laptop and a MIDI keyboard. This enables Jerid and the client to immediately start spotting, writing, recording and fully orchestrating on location. In addition, he does full orchestration, producing, mixing and mastering in his studio. Jerid also states, “I always try to compose the music not only match the mood of the scene or the personality of the character, but also the genre of the film or scene. I do this with instrumentation as well as by altering the size of the orchestra. For instance, for a silent movie, I will match the instrument type used and the quantity of players possibly used. This gives authenticity to the film as well as the actions portrayed.”