About Me
In the beginning there were three. Mike McNelis was coming off of a bitter breakup of his band Letter of Fidelity. He needed a rock and roll fix. Aaron Zeld was a mild mannered downriver boy with the only amplifier in town that could keep up with Mike's. Mike and Aaron said, "Why not? Let's start a band." Aaron played in a band called Lipid a long time before this with this guy who used to be in every band that ever came out of Rockwood, MI...ever! His name was Mike Boyd. Yep, that Mike Boyd. Mike, Aaron and Mike got together sometime in the late summer of 1997 to jam...hence Tryptaphan was formed. We had this kid named Jason Piovesan, JP for short, come to play with us a few times, but that didn't quite work out. Somewhere shortly after that the three of us all sat down after practice to watch the Dark Crystal at Aaron's house and came to be known as Landstrider from then on. A few months later we were beginning to get itchy about finding another guitar player...enter Mike's brother Josh Boyd. Josh rounded out the Mesa/Boogie amplifier triad and brought some serious songwriting skills with him after the breakup of his band Bulimist. We scrapped our two songs that we were working on and began to concentrate on the songs that Josh was bringing to the table. Aaron was reluctantly doing all of the singing and now we were getting itchy (again) to set ourselves apart, in sound, from Aaron's other band Ingoy (in which Aaron both sang and played guitar). So what did we do? We borrowed one of Ingoy's other members to do all of the lead vocals for Landstrider. You guessed it, Andy Wong became a Landstrider. This really made some good things happen for us. Andy and Aaron made some sick vocal harmonies; Josh, Mike, and Mike pounded out the rhythms; and we all started to get serious about our little band. Then came disaster. Aaron got all weird and decided to take some time off from Landstrider due to his busy schedule. We told him O.K., but made it a permanent vacation. Back to the drawring (bumlooker!) board. This was the dawn of new era for Landstrider. Mike, Josh, and Mike made it a point to continue with practices, once a week. Without Andy, we brought in Ben Force from King For A Day, Posthole, Linden, Gyga, The Great Detroit Riverboat Race, and every other band ever to emerge from Livonia, MI since 1995. He lasted for two practices and then King For A Day decided to get back together. Bye Bye Benny. We found Andy again and decided to carry on as a four piece. We kept writing songs and upped our practice time to two days a week. Things were starting to shape up once again. In June of 1998 we hit Scalici's Underground Lounge in Allen Park, MI for open-mic night. We successfully rocked out to Mike's dad and Josh's girlfriend. Two people! Helluva debut! Next up was the graduation party circuit. We did Andy's party and our friend Shawn Lee's party. Both shows were mild successes, but we then decided that a new guitar player (with vocal abilities) was something that we all still wanted. First up on the tryout circuit was Andy Mabry. He came with recommendations from a friend and he had a beautiful 1969 Gibson SG. Per usual for Landstrider second guitar players, he lasted for two practices. We all wondered if we would ever find the perfect combination of guitar abilities, vocal ability, amplification level, and all around personality in a second guitar player. Aha! A revelation occurs to Mike. What about JimmyZ? Longtime friend, ex-Silo drummer, and fellow Trenton marching band alumni Jim Henderson seemed to be an obvious choice. He had just gotten himself a Randall half stack and had some free time after the breakup of both of his bands, Silo and Haunted House. Mike brought it up to the kids in Landstrider. We all decided to give it a try. It worked. It was a long and winding road to get there, at least we still had two original members left after all that, right? The rest is history.
