Coincidental turns of events always seem to lurk before us on the ultimate highway of fame and glory. Seemingly unrelated people, places and things are placed in neat little boxes with specific categories and dates labeled for storage until someday...someone comes looking for them...figuratively speaking of course. I have no need for my friends in my attic or basement in boxes (that's creepy).
It would seem as if something or someone could foresee the collision where you, in this case WE, crossed the paths and even united with normally distant events or with people who we have never met. Like when we met the late Dimebag Darrel [Pantera - RIP] through our friends SOIL. Coincidentally, Marcus Rafferty, brother of Mike Rafferty [original Brand New Sin drummer] is the guitar tech for Dimebag's brother's current band HELL YEAH! [Vinnie Paul].
I'm sure it's happened to you and you've said, "wow, small world isn't it?". I suppose you could relate it to the '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon' phenomenon but he was in Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks and Tom, well...he's Tom Hanks so once you work with him you're pretty much affiliated with the entire Hollywood cast (or real close).
Relevance you ask?
We just learned that we have two dates with the almighty Slash (Velvet Revolver, Guns N Roses) on our upcoming national tour in February! The first of which is at the Chicago House Of Blues where we met Dimebag (see?).
Our new guitarist, Tommy Matkowski is a huge Slash fan! He was probably one of the first people to buy the new Slash album. He turned Brand New Sin on to it and it's one of our favorites. For those who don't know, this tour is NOT Slash's Snake Pit, Velvet Revolver, or GNR...this is new, fresh stuff and it's great! I'm not kissing arse here... I (we) thought it was great when we first heard it, long before we knew we would be opening for him. It's part of our touring road mixes on the Ipod. Slash's concept was brilliant! He took some of the most famous rockers in the history of rock (Chris Cornell, Ozzy, Lemmy) along with some new, amazing young talent and had them sing on his album! He also shrink-wrapped a CD and Shirt into the same package and sold them together. He also hired one of the baddest and most recorded drummers EVER, Josh Freese (Alanis Morissette, Perfect Circle, Devo, Infectious Grooves, Dweezil Zappa, The Vandals, Tracey Bonham, Megadeth, Katy Perry ...etc. etc. it's a god damned bible's worth of artists) to lay down some phat grooves.
Ok, back to the circle of friends and acquaintances-
Our manager, Pete Merluzzi grew up around the corner and over a block from me in Lyncourt, NY (suburb of Syracuse). We attended the same elementary and high schools. He is Slash's tour manager and accountant. Naturally, you would assume that he had something to do with this, right? Slash's drummer, Brent Fitz is in another band with the drummer who made me want to play drums in the first place- my good friend Jeff Tortora who is also from Lyncourt. Jeff was such a bad-ass that he was the featured soloist on drum set in 3rd grade. I was in catholic school at the time and our school visited his school when I was 8 to see him play. He was playing all the cool drum licks and tricks from my favorite rockers and mixing it with jazz-fusion for concert band. That was it for me. 3 years later we were in band together and I stole everything I could from that kid to become a better drummer. I'll be catching up to him forever. He now plays in the Blue Man Group which is how he met Brent (in Vegas, their current home town). *Incidentally, Brent and Jeff are both drummers yet neither is the drummer of their band, "Tinnitus"! Jeff is the front man and Brent is the keyboardist.
It's another one of those interesting fortunate accidents that we get share in blogs and report on our resumes and tell our grandchildren only to hear them say, "who?".
Until next time...keep reading the BNS Blog and keep jammin' Brand New Sin!
-Kevin Dean
BRAND NEW SIN
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