By Nicky Baldrian
The roots of
exciting newcomers BALLBREAKER go back to the summer of 1995 when
guitarist Steve Felerski and singer Edward James Spock found
themselves at a loose end writing songs in their home studio.
Bass player Jerry Harkins was dating a girl who lived above their
home studio."Jerry was playing in a band called Bon Voyage
with guitarist Mark Stevens and drummer Todd Tracy." recalls
Ed Spock.
Bon Voyage eventually disbanded and through this girl Jerry was
courting with, Jerry met up with Steve Felerski. The two
musiciancs got into deep conversation about the bands they had
played with and they discaoverd a mutual taste in music when the
question about starting a Ted Nugent tribute band came up.
Steve was alway a big fan of the great Gonzo and totally went for
the idea , "I recieved a call that day" continues Ed
from Steve asking if I wanted to try singing with these guys.
Initially I said no because I wanted to keep writing and playing
around in the studio."
But then Ed hooked up with Jerry, "I was then put on the
phone with Jerry and he talked me into coming down to his place
and just trying out a few songs. So then the call went out to our
original drummer Jeff Gillette who played in a band called The
Storm with Steve in the late 80s."
The five gentlemen Ed,Steve, Mark, Jerry, and Jeff went on to
learn various songs by Judas Priest, Ted Nugent, Scorpions and
AC/DC ,"We all finally got together to jam. At first it was
sounding horrible. A definite garage band. We couldn't piece the
songs together for the life of us. After a couple practices Mark
started to get a little disenchanted with the whole thing and was
ready to call it quits and look for something new but Jerry had a
strong gut feeling about this and talked Mark into sticking it
out a while longer.
Things kept rolling along pretty much the same way for a couple
more practices until we got to the AC/DC song. We played it like
we owned it right from the start. After we played it for the
first time Jerry turned to me and asked "Can you sing like
that all night?" to which I replied, "Fuckin' A I
can!" At that point Jerry turned to the band and said,
"I think we found our niche."
And so BALLBREAKER was born, and the band went on learning old
and new AC/DC songs. "We played our first gig at an open jam
right around Thanksgiving time at a small bar called Poorboys to
a crowd of about twenty people. But we hit that first chord like
no tomorrow and it wasn't long before those twenty people were
right up front banging heads right along with us. Our second gig
was New Years Eve night right around the corner from Poorboys at
a place called Spectators, we opened up for The Good Rats (Very
popular band along the East Coast of the States/now signed to Now
And Then/Frontiers Records).The third gig we played was back at
old Poorboys once again, a couple months later. Only this time
there weren't only twenty people, there were two hundred people
at any given time there. To this day the police still are aware
of our arrival weeks in advance to that
town for crowd control. It's a great feeling. So we quickly
started growing a big following with our explosive stage show,
live performance and interaction with the fans. At this time we
needed to branch out and start traveling a bit. But Jeff was not
keeping up with the rest of us as in learning songs and was a bit
over the top for what we were doing. So needless to say Jeff
exited the band and in came our second drummer Paul Marlzoff.
During that time we pretty much toured around New York State
doing the AC/DC tribute with no intentions for original music.
After about a year or so we began to stagnate a bit. The crowds were not getting much bigger and we were making some fatal errors on stage that needed to be remedied. We realized that we needed to take our stage show to the next level. Paul was a technical drummer. He played the parts like the album but not much more. We felt that we needed somebody to throw some personality in to the kit. We needed a rock n roll drummer. At that time Todd's old band were calling it quits after a ten year run and he was looking for something decent to jump into. Enter Todd Tracy into Ballbreaker and we enter mach three. Todd learned the AC/DC quickly and we were back out in a months time ready to start pummeling again. With the new addition and the new life back in the band, the crowds began to notice and word started to get around that we were back and stronger than ever. Now the crowds started to swell at the shows.
After Todd's first
year in the band we began to discuss doing original material. It
was what we had to do to take us to the next level. We had
already built a strong fan base and we felt the time was right to
pepper in our own stuff. So we all brought our ideas to the table
and we began to build on them. Our first original song we played
out was "Inside Out" and it got great reactions from
the audience. It gave us drive to keep going. So we spent most of
1999 writing for the cd and doing our tribute thing out on the
road. In February of 2000 we went into the studio with Greg
Bennet of Moondog Sound and recorded the album in a weekend. It
was a very stressful period. A lot of hard work but we did it and
it was a great learning experiance for all of us. With all the
mixing, post production, and artwork it took until July for the
cd to actually come out. But now it's out and has recieved a
great respinse from press all over the world and more impotantly
a great response from fans. So now the year 2000 not only sees a
new millenium but a new BALLBREAKER cd as well. We now have
worked ourselves from the AC/DC tribute into the all original
outfit you hear on the cd, so we've hit the road to promote our
disc ( and yes we still do AC/DC stuff live to) and are also
writing right now for the second one. We have about five songs
already and are looking towards having something ready to release
early next year."
Ballbreaker will certainly bust your balls, their self titled
debut album is a great listen featuring eight thunderous hard
rock songs in the AC/DC tradition. Packed with a powerful
prodcution it looks as if Ballbreaker could just take a step up
to the next level.
You can email Ed Spock for more information on Ballbreaker visit
their website http://www.ballbreaker.net and Email the band edspock@hotmail.com