Ok, so back in August of 2007 I wrote what I thought would be the final installment of this “Making The Band” series but so much has happened since then that I feel compelled to continue the saga of what was supposed to be a simple assembly of a little cover band.

Finding a capable lead guitarist has always seemed to be our problem from day one. If you read the previous blogs you’ll see that so I won’t get into that again. Let’s just go back to last August and move on.

So we found this guy Charlie who really fit in well. Granted, he was a little younger than us and hadn’t even heard some of the songs we were playing until he joined up, but he could play and play well. There was just one problem. He joined a cover band. Why is that a problem, you ask? Well, after a few months with us he decided he didn’t want to be in a cover band and left to do original material.

Don’t try to figure it out, it’ll just make your brain hurt. We like Charlie a lot and wish him the best. We’ll see him at some of the gigs I’m sure. He really is a stellar guy.

So how did this affect us? Well, once again we lost a lead guitarist and a good chunk of morale with him. We knew that we’d have to “reboot” again with a new person and that would set us back from 40 songs we had down to about 10. Once again, we had to start from scratch, place ads on the net and go through that awful auditioning stage.

So Charlie left at the end of October 2007 and strangely enough, in the same week, an old friend of mine that I used to play in a band with called me out of the blue. We hadn’t talked for a few years but we’re good friends so that stuff doesn’t matter. He just happens to be a guitarist. You can guess what happened next.

My old friend Elio joined the group as a guitarist. He and I go way back to one of the first bands I was in back in the metal days of the late 80’s and early 90’s, right before grunge took over. In an original setting, he was great, but I had no idea if he could play covers well. It was a chance we took, but after a while it became clear that a cover band was not for him.

He has a family of three kids and can’t put in the time to learn all the stuff, which is totally understandable and I even suggested that he not do this anymore. I actually suggested we do some original recording on the side instead so there’s no pressure to learn things so quickly. He agreed and removed himself without issue and we’re of course still friends so no harm, no foul. The only thing that sort of stunk is we had to reboot yet again and lost a few more months.

That brought us up to the end of January 2008.

The ads went back up and this time it was a little scary because only two or three replies came in. We acted quickly on them, however and scored an audition with a guy named Rick in mid-February.

Rick seemed like a good match right from the start because he had already played in a bunch of cover bands and was recently part of an acoustic duo that played a ton of cover songs as well. He played a wide range and expressed that he thought our set list was a really good mix of songs, many of which he already knew.

So needless to say I was pretty stoked. Like most auditions, however, we had to take it easy and just make sure the guy could actually play and do what he said he could do in all the emails that went around.

So in mid-February, Rick met us at the rehearsal studio, came in fully prepared, rocked every song we threw at him, and even jammed on tunes we hadn’t played before. He got right on the mic when he felt like singing. He did everything he said he could do. The moment he went home, we were all in agreement that he was the man for the job.

It’s hard to believe that one year (almost to the day) before we auditioned Rick was our first rehearsal. What a long year! There has to be some sort of karmic symbolism in there somewhere…something about rebirth or whatever.

Anyhow, Rick lives a good distance away and certain nights are not good for him to rehearse on, so we made a few changes and concessions to adjust for that. We moved rehearsal night from Wednesday to Thursday and changed the time from 8-10 to 9-11. We’re also just about ready to start rehearsing at my place instead of paying for a studio which is nice.

So, Thursday the 13th of March starts the new phase of Hearsay with a complete and capable line up consisting of some fun, laid back guys playing rock tunes that you might like in bars and clubs around Northern NJ. Hopefully, with any luck, we’ll be up to speed, ready with 40 or 50 songs, gigging by May or so, and rocking into the summer.

I have a really good feeling about this particular line up.

Can I get an AMEN?

Previous installments:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8