“Life as I had known it was over,” deMeyer writes in his 2008 self-published memoir The Fire Within, a book that ultimately disproves his own statement by celebrating the people and events the constitute the fascinating life of the 58-year-old child of the ’60s known as Chazz deMeyer.

The book also marks his return to music, for it includes a 12-song CD called Recovery, written and performed by deMeyer in his Beaver Dam home recording studio, with a little musical help from friends such as Jim Schwall.

“I’ve struggled with it for a really long, long time,” deMeyer said about his 30-year absence from serious music making. “It wasn’t my choice to leave music, so to speak.”

With surgery and a strong desire to succeed, overcame his paralyzing injury, though his left side never fully recovered.

“I’ve really been big on set your sights low so you can attain them,” deMeyer said.

He re-taught himself how to play one-handed Moog and performed in a band as a bass player through the late 1970s, but since the 1980s, he’s had various careers – student, businessman, home builder. He also married Elle, an occupational therapist he met while recovering from his accident, and they had two children, son Rik, who created the graphics for the book and CD, and daughter Alaina, who took photos for the projects.

“Life is great,” deMeyer said. “This is so fulfilling. I had this fear when I started Recovery that something would happen to me and I wouldn’t be able to finish it. I’m not morose or thinking I’m going to die. I felt an urgency to start creating again. There was an urgency to get the music back. I didn’t know if it was still in there. I didn’t even know if I could play well enough to record. Not necessarily great, but just well, well enough to satisfy myself.”

First came a modest digital studio that deMeyer built in his home. He built a birch-finished plywood base for his equipment (“a beautiful piece of furniture that I like almost as much as I like my music,” he said), and began playing with the recording equipment.

“I wasn’t used to digital recording, but it was so good. Can you really record this well out of your home? The answer is yes,” he said. “Then it just started falling together. It started with a song. I can’t even remember what the first song was. I never intended to write a full album. It’s a slow process, one part at a time, but with just two synthesizers I laid down almost all the tracks and then asked my friends to play with me, which was a little unfair because the music was already in a very strong direction, so they just filled in the groove.”

When the CD was finished, deMeyer’s wife suggested he write the story of his life. At first deMeyer thought, right, a book about me when a million people have overcome far more than I have. But when he started thinking about his life, the floodgates were opened and he couldn’t stop the memories from pouring out.

“It took three months to write it. It just seemed right,” he said. “As I started writing, I started thinking of all those times and people, and things were just coming back like a train. I could barely keep it contained. I’d like to tell you it was difficult or hard, but it was so easy it was ridiculous. Couldn’t stop the memories. Fantastic things happened as a result. It made me think of all those people that were part of my life and I made an enduring effort to get back in touch and now have good relationships, not that they were bad, but old relationships rekindled. A lot of good things came out of that.”

But deMeyer still had a lot of catching up to do after a 30-year absence from music.

“When Recovery was done, the first thing I wanted to do was write another album,” he said.

In October deMeyer released his second home studio CD, Vampire Love.

“When I got Recovery done, people said, ‘Gee, Chazz, that sounds like the ’70s’, and I got to thinking, what else would I do? That’s when I stopped playing. The thing that comes out of your pocket is the thing that has been in there the longest. Everything’s kind of reminiscent of that era. But I got that out of my system. I’m very happy with Vampire Love. Recovery was a catharsis, something to work through. Vampire Love is different. The songs are written with what I think to be commercial. It’s as commercial as I can get.”

deMeyer adds that Vampire Love may also be his last “solo” recording because of a Skype musical relationship he has developed with pianist Tom Taylor of Detroit.

“The first band I played in out of the hospital, it was his band,” deMeyer said. “He’s such a great piano player and we think so much alike. Right now with the Skype-ing and working out the parts on the internet, I’m really thinking this is probably my last solo venture.”

Taylor and deMeyer are working on developing some commercial projects, and deMeyer said he probably wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to hear applause if the right venue offered the chance for a live performance.

“My goal is to live as long as I can. I like it,” he said. “I’m a product of the ’60s and am lucky to be alive on many, many levels. I like to think that breaking my neck only slowed me down and kept me from killing myself. The focal point to me, the rest of my life, is what I do with music right now. There’s no way I think I’m great or fantastic, but I do something nobody else does. I play like Chazz deMeyer.”

To hear samples of deMeyer’s music, go to chazzdemeyer.com.