Vanderplast Biogrpahy

Bruce Vanderplast was born in Ruse, Bulgaria to an American tourist and Greek hair stylist. He attended English language school in Sozopol until his mother moved him to Athens to help care for her dying father. There, Vanderplast learned to play the recorder, the sick man's favorite instrument.

At 16, Vanderplast dropped out of school to work but was unable to find a job due to the historically high youth unemployment rate. He spent his days playing at his grandfather's bedside and began writing his own songs. He traded a neighbor lessons in Cyrillic for piano lessons and digital recording software, which he used to record Vanderplast Sings!.​

It is believed that Vanderplast married his first wife while mixing Vanderplast Sings!. Her name is not known. In letters to his father, who had by then returned to America, he described her as "interested" in his music, but "a little on the critical side." Of the 37 songs recorded and mixed for the album, only three survive.

​It is unknown how Vanderplast spent the following year. No letters survive, nor any documentation except a voicemail to his mother telling her he was getting divorced and moving to Bavaria.

Vanderplast's time in Bavaria is also not well-documented, though he briefly joined a popular hula-hooping club, in search of a childhood girlfriend. After the death of his grandfather, he wrote his cousin in Byala Municipality that he would be hitchhiking back to Greece and was sending some possessions for safe-keeping. Among them was the material later released as Vanderplast Clings.

The following Spring in Athens, Vanderplast built a small studio in the basement of his mother's hair salon. After losing her clientele to the pay cuts and tax hikes of government austerity packages, the salon was forced into bankruptcy and Vanderplast moved his studio to the basement of a nearby church. The church also declared bankruptcy and shuttered, though not before Vanderplast recorded Vanderplast Rings. Shortly after, Vanderplast emigrated to America.

Vanderplast's time with his father in America was the most productive of his life. A week after his arrival, his father was arrested for touching a wing nut at an oil refinery and charged under counter-terrorism law, and for three years Vanderplast did nothing except visit him in the mornings and play music in the afternoons. Vanderplast Wings, as well as material later released on Vanderplast Pings and Vanderplast Zings were recorded during this time.

Due to a visa problem following the accidental purchase of an illegal cactus, Vanderplast was forced to leave the country while his father was still in prison.

It is not known how Vanderplast came to live in Suriname. He lived in the capital city and later attributed his creative output during this period to not being able to understand what anyone was saying. He met and married his second wife, Agrafena, and moved in to her condominium until they were forced to flee a crime syndicate for whom Agrafena refused to perform dental work. They settled in Uruguay, but after only a month left for Colombia to assist Agrafa's sister. On the eve of their departure, Agrafena presented Vanderpast with an autographed copy of Vanderplast Pings, a compilation of unreleased demos she had arranged while Vanderplast was anesthetized. According to airport staff, Vanderplast was moved but also concerned over the production quality and Agrafena's having been able to obtain his autograph without his knowledge.

​Public records provide the only evidence of Vanderplast's divorce from Agrafena. Family members say he did not tell anyone about it, and no one remembers him mentioning any problems in the marriage.

​From Colombia, Vanderplast traveled to Eugene, Oregon, where his father was making funeral preparations for Vanderplast's only brother, Victor. After a week of sorting through Victor's photo albums and papers, Vanderplast recorded Vanderplast Stings using a borrowed guitar.

​Vanderplast resided in Eugene for at least two years. It is generally thought that he traveled to Southeast Asia after, but it is not known for certain.

'Plasterd was compiled and released without his participation by the Bruce Vanderplast Archival Compilation Society of Greater New York and Toulouse.