Sky Stone

Winter 2004.Chris James is regularly playing a seedy dive of a tavern (no longer around) with his good friend John. Two acoustics, cover songs, some original ideas that will later become full fledged Sky Stone material.He is inexperienced and pathetically trying to satisfy his need to perform music in any capacity.The extra cash helps pay his half of the rent to live in the apartment right above this tavern, but sometimes he has to “negotiate” to get paid at all if he and his buddy don’t bring in any bar sales.This was life three years ago before Sky Stone came to be. The one thing James knew was that he wanted to get a great band together; a band that would keep one foot in the past and the other kicking at the future. He thought music was missing something. Maybe it was the diverse sounds of the '60s and '70s and early '90s that he favoured over the pop overkill of the '80s and present day.“I remember way back wanting to create original music that was hard, aggressive and blues based but heavily routed in rhythm. The former was all I knew, being obsessed with where you could take traditional American music after hearing British bands like Led Zeppelin for the first time.”“I knew initially that I needed someone with a very strong grasp of rhythm in every aspect of the term – this person had to breathe rhythm…”James found an old covered up ad for a drummer/percussionist on the corkboard in a music store and decided to give the guy a call. To make a long story short, Rob Leclerc came out to one of the tavern acoustic gigs and introduced himself between sets. To say the least, he was unimpressed but saw something underneath it all that prevented him from leaving that night. Good thing, because Rob was that guy....After performing a couple of acoustic/conga shows together, the pair knew they needed to find a bass player. Not just a bass player, but one who was not afraid to proudly push that instrument to the forefront and keep it noticed. The idea was always to have three distinct personalities – each member's instrument needed to share the spotlight, so to speak."It was really a great thing that my friend John knew me so well musically. He was the guy who suggested I give Butch a call. I think he knew that the fit would be right. What I instantly loved about Butch was that he was quiet and unassuming, but when he started playing, man, you knew how he preferred to do his talking!""The first rehearsal went great. The best part was that everyone was unconsciously on the same musical page. I listen back to recordings of some of those early rehearsals and I can still hear the magic."Sky Stone was born. body { background-color:000000; background-image:url('http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o29 2/freefreeuploads/francis/SkullBackground.jpg'); background-attachment: fixed; background-position:center center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border-color:ff0000; border-width:5px ; border-style: solid; scrollbar-face-color:000000; scrollbar-highlight-color:FF2222; scrollbar-3dlight-color:FFFFFF; scrollbar-sh