Charlie and I started getting together in late 2013 just to “pick and grin” mostly on acoustic guitars. We talked about bands we had been in back in the day, then we started to talk about putting some tunes together to play out a little, maybe just the two of us but we just couldn’t seem to get it arranged.

That’s when the conversation changed to forming a really good group. We thought it would be fun to pull together the best musicians we could find to perform the super hits of the 70’s & 80’s. The first call we made was to Kevin. We both knew him and had been in projects with him in the past. Kevin is by far the best drummer I have ever had the pleasure of working with. He’s a machine. I called him and he said “who’s involved”? I said “me and Charlie at this point”. He said “I haven’t played in years, but sure, I’m in”. So at that point we had a real drummer. We then started trying out bass players while actively seeking a keyboard player and a singer.

Before any thoughts of forming a group, my wife and I had been to a small club to listen to a husband & wife acoustic duo we knew. That particular night they had a bass player with them. They did Hotel California and I told my wife you don’t often hear it, but the bassist played the bass part correctly. I remembered that and tracked Ron down. He was scheduled for an audition and we called him a few days early to come over because we were going to audition a singer. Another good call, we then had a bassist. A singer, not so much.

We spent a lot of time searching for a singer and a keyboard player. I had become friends with Tom on facebook after seeing him on BandMix. We actually communicated for about 6 months but he was already in 2 groups and simply didn’t have time. I guess I wore him down. One day Tom saw me on facebook and asked if we had found a keyboard player, I told him not yet, still looking. He made the comment that it would be good to just get together and jam with no commitments, just good to know other musicians in the area. He said, give me 5 songs and I’ll come over next week, but I really don’t have time for another group, just a jam session. We said, sure, gave him 5 songs, one of which was Carry On by Kansas. He told his wife he was going over to jam with some guys trying to put a band together but he wasn’t expecting much. He hasn’t missed a rehearsal since.

Little did we realize that our lead singer was already in the group, Charlie continued to sing us through our rehearsals while we searched for and auditioned singers. We went through a dozen singers from as far away as 175 miles. But we stayed true to our goal and didn’t lower the bar.