Former B.R. guitarist gets techy in Houston

Name: Scott McAdory
Age: 36
Here: Lead guitarist, Lucid Pearl; staff, The Chimes; LSU student
There: CEO and founder of Dark Lake Digital and a financial planning and analysis manager at Technip in Houston

When did you move away from Baton Rouge?
I left Baton Rouge for the last time in 2001 when I took a job with the Shaw Group and headed out west into the Arizona desert to a power project location in Harquahala Valley, about an hour west of Phoenix. I brought my guitar and computers with me.

What do you miss most about B.R.?
The water. I know most people say food, but we’ve got good food—not quite the same, but very good—in Houston. What we don’t have in Houston is good water. I miss the sweet taste of the water in the southwest of Baton Rouge the most.

What don’t you miss about the city?
The most annoying feature of Baton Rouge to me was always the apparent total lack of urban planning and development to prepare the city for the future in line with realistic population growth projections.

What’s the first thing you think of in Houston that B.R. lacks?
Houston’s economy was nearly $450 billion in 2012, land and housing are cheap, schools are not so bad, and we don’t have a state income tax—so if you rent, you don’t pay any state or local taxes other than through sales tax and vehicle registration.

When was the last time you visited Baton Rouge?
I visited my mother and stepfather in Baton Rouge with my 6-year-old son last fall, and we enjoyed an LSU football game and hung out pre-game at the PMAC with the LSU Athletics Foundation. We had a great time and look forward to next season.

What are your B.R. essentials when you visit?
Real Cajun food. And if it’s the fall, a Saturday on the LSU campus.

Tell me a little bit about Dark Lake Digital?
I founded Dark Lake Digital, LLC, last December. As an MBA student at LSU Online, I decided to create my very own laboratory where I could test ideas and concepts from the MBA. With darklakedigital.com, I’ve created a hub for music, fashion and art where people can freely browse original work and buy or stream music from our artists. Any unsigned artists or musicians can make contact and present their content. It’s about bringing as much creative power into one place as we can, where fans can interact with their favorite artists.

What drove you to launch this creative network?
I chose to focus on my passion, which remains art—mainly music. I want Dark Lake Digital to deliver a winning situation for the clients, the artists and my creative passions.