About Me
Let's see...
Born in Edmonton, went to school, enjoyed wrestling and rock n' roll, worked at a video store, then hit the road. This will be hard for me to remember all the bands, but bear with me...
First paying gig in a bar was with my high school band, Deceiver, in Leduc. First touring band was called Hard Luck , with a couple of guys I had met while auditioning for another band, and my high school bandmate Dean. While playing, you can sign for food and drinks, and Dean wasn't so good at math, so he owed the band money after just about every gig, true story.
After we disbanded, I ended up playing in a crossover/country band for a couple of months, a 3 piece band called Iron Weed. This band introduced me to Peace River, where the indians are not allowed to buy mouthwash at the drugstore, true story.
I went out to Vancouver next, to join up with a band called Gun Shy, but it didn't happen, so me and the guitar player hung out in Burnaby for a while before heading back to Calgary.
I ended up joining DR.Strange , where I met Jamie and Brett, and we played the heaviest shit going at that time. That lasted as long as it could, and then I headed up to Edmonton to join a band called Noize Boyz, which we changed to (the gayest ever name) Sweet Seduction . This was a really good band, but I ended up getting a call from my old guitar player from Hard Luck, Trevor. He had a new band called Vendetta , and needed a bass player.
They had a chick singer and toured B.C. so I jumped at the chance. Things went well for a while, but the drummer was banging the singer, so that fell apart too.
I ended up with Randy from Vendetta playing in what was basically an AC/DC tribute named PowerLoad. When we weren't playing our AC/DC set, we covered Motorhead, Krokus and even Jerry Lee Lewis. This was a very fun band with a very fun set list, but no bars were very interested in booking us, so that was that.
After that band, I stayed in Edmonton and joined up with the Martin Andrew Band , which was a different experience for me. We had a lot of sequenced keyboards, so the drummer played to a click track to stay in time. The singer is a British dude, who fucked everything that moved, so you had to be very still while you were around him. This band played everywhere across Western Canada and was a fun time, but the band wanted to write songs, and everyone had very different ideas, so that ended too.
Next up was one of my favorite bands, Jack Slander . I had met Kurt while he was playing in Mindcrime, and Bill while I was still in a high school battle of the bands. We got ahold of Darren, and got a rippin' set list together, and started playing across Alberta and B.C. drawing crowds wherever we went. Things were going really good, we were starting to write songs, then Bill suddenly quit. He was down about being away from home and unable to practice his drums all day like he was used to. He moved down to L.A. to go to P.I.T. but moved back the moment they had the earthquake, what a pussy!
Our last Jack Slander gig was at Chaplin's in Calgary, and we played straight through our set breaks all night long for a 3 hour long set, playing every song we knew. The next day, while the rest of the band packed up and headed back to Edmonton, I loaded my gear into a different band's van, and began playing with the Ritual a week later. This band was also pretty killer, with Kevin singing, Mike on guitar and Jarret on drums. We played in Calgary mostly, lots at the Skyroom on Electric Ave, and played a few out of town gigs also. I think it was Dawson Creek where Kevin got deathly ill and couldn't sing. He went to the hospital, and we headed back to Calgary. Kev had to fly home, and was pissed we left him there, but we were dicks, what do you expect? Jarret left the band to join Raw Trixx, and Wayne came in to play drums. Kevin ended up leaving soon after, and Shane came in to sing. Mike didn't care much for Shane, so he left to join Raw Trixx also.
This brings us to the start of the Silly Wrabbit chapter. Shane and I grabbed Graham and Brian from Pez and played a couple weekends as Silly Wrabbit, as kind of a dirt kicking to Raw Trixx (Trixx are for kids). This was fun, but not nearly permanent.
This is where Brett (from DR.Strange) comes into play again. He hooks me up with his cousin Benny Doro, who was managed by Paul Stanley at the time, and I called up Kurt and Bill, and re-formed Jack Slander, with the intention of forming a Kiss tribute.
We gigged for a couple of months while getting the set list, costumes, pyro pots and Kiss sign together. Bill wasn't quite the right drummer for the gig, so we moved out to Vancouver and got Mark. We filmed a promo video, and then started to gig right away as Black Diamond . We were all very good at our characters and were killing everywhere we went, with a full Kiss stage show, roadies and everything. My girlfriend at the time got pregnant, so I had to give up the tribute, and they replaced me (with Darren, our singer from Jack Slander) and continued to do really cool things, even flying to Japan for a tour.
I came back to Calgary and re-formed Silly Wrabbit again, with JD, Glen and Kevin. We played a couple times a month or so, and hosted the Sunday jam at Chaplin's more often than not. We played only the shit we wanted, and it went over very well wherever we went, except Slave Lake. Not sure what happened, but there was some story about JD spitting on Kevin, Kevin throwing his drums across the stage... long story short, we got fired and the band was pretty much doomed.
Some band from Vancouver named Domino Theory had been in Calgary and had seen a Silly Wrabbit gig on a Sunday. They immediately decided to move to Calgary and join me (Dave hates my side of the story). We clicked right away and seemed to be a hit with the bars. We were booked throughout Calgary and had great fun for years, even managing to put out a CD of original tunes under the name Miss UFO. We played everywhere, including the grand opening of a gym (in front of the life cycles) and on the back of a flatbed truck in the middle of a rodeo in Brooks. Great guys and a great band, but Dave moved on to become a pilot. Brian came in to replace him, but Scott ended up leaving too, so we changed the name of the band back to Silly Wrabbit and hired Vance to play drums. He lasted about a year and a half before we replaced him with Sebastion.
Things went smoothly for another couple of years, until Craig couldn't keep up with us anymore. We let him go and replaced him with Jamie (from DR.Strange), which is where we stand right now.
Whew, I am sure I missed 5 or 6 other bands along the way. but that is pretty much it.
