By Nicky Baldrian
By
Nicky Baldrian
Deep in North Hollywood lies one of the
finest hard working rock bands of recent years.The band have
toured with almost everyone from Flotsam And Jetsom to Slaughter
and Yngwie Malmsteen. Their reputation is growing stronger and
stronger every year. The band recently issued their debut kick
arse album simply titled "Cut Throat" and also shot
some promo videos.
Cut Throat started two and a half years ago, "Sean Okin was
looking to put together a band at the time and knew Darwin
DeVitis through a friend." explains Ken Snyder. The guys
asked Darwin to come down to rehearsals and to jam, Ken continues
"At the time, and Darwin and I had a band and we needed a
singer and drummer. He hit it off really well with them and was
impressed with Sean as a vocalist. Unfortunately, our bassist
didn't want to replace our current singer (long story).
Eventually, Darwin brought me down to jam with them and
ultimately we realized that this was a better fit for both of us.
John came down from an ad we placed and fitted in immediately and
Cut Throat was born."
Once the band had rehearsed together for a while they started to
play live "We started hitting the local club scene and found
most people and clubs disinterested in a band that was playing
original music that wasn't grunge, complete with killer vocals
and actual guitar solos. We even had one indy label guy tell Sean
"You sound really
good but no one wants to here solos anymore." Also at the
time, the clubs were populated with tribute bands, but we kept
plugging." remembers Ken.
" We were probably the only band flyering clubs at the time
and I think we still probably are the only ones." he laughs,
" Our philosophy was that we were going to do it our way and
that no band was going to outwork us. We shortly thereafter went
in the studio to record a quick 3 song demo, which was So Far
Down, Bullet and Took
it Away. We later went back in the studio 2 seperate times and
recorded the other seven songs so we could release our cd
independently."
The bands popularity then started to grow "As more and more
people heard about us, the cd's started selling and the crowds
got bigger and bigger, climaxing this past month with a show at
House of Blues with Sebastian Bach, plus shows with Wasp, Yngwie
Malmsteen, Slaughter, Warrant, Bullet Boys, Love/Hate, Flotsom
& Jetsom, Former members of Tesla, Babylon AD (and I'm sure
I've missed somebody). Our cd's have since sold world wide,
including distribution in Germany and in the States with various
independent distributors." he says triumphantly.
Ken started playing trumpet in 5th grade. "A few years later
I really started to get into rock music, such as Kiss, Aerosmith
and Van Halen, and much to my suprise, there wasn't any trumpet
on any of them! I switched to guitar and started teaching myself
how to play. Everyone thought I would give it up inside of a
year, but I've never stopped.
People always say that guys get in bands to meet chicks, but I
was playing guitar long before I realized that was one of the
perks, though no one ever believes me on that!" he laughs.
For Ken inspiration comes from many areas "I'm inspired by a
lot of different things. First, great bands and musicians from
the past and present, including Jimi Hendrix, Zep, Van Halen,
Aerosmith, Kings X, Police, Pantera, Megadeth, Steve Vai to name
a
few. Also anytime I go to a big concert, you can't help but be
inspired.
Mostly it's our
fans that just get us extremely pumped up. Also, it never hurts
to have a great guitar sound either!" Cut Throats album is
very much a musical statement against the frunge worlds, each
song is full on hard rock at it's finest baring comparisons with
such names as Skid Row and Winger, "The first album was
really a case of different guys bringing in ideas, in some case
nearly completed and then the band adding finishing touches to
them. For example, Bullet was a song that Sean had and Darwin
rearranged the solo section. A couple songs like So Far Down and
Took It Away were from the original jam sessions between Darwin,
JD and Sean, were Darwin basically wrote all the music on the
spot and then he and Sean would collaborate on the vocals. I also
brought in Come Down from a song that we were working up in our
previous band and we rewrote the lyrics and melodies. The best
two were Dead Man Walking and Living in Anger. Those were
actually finished in the
studio under pressure! We had never heard the vocals until Sean
sang them the first time.
The second cd is much more a band collaboration. Most of the
songs have been worked up from a riff that somebody has and then
we will work up the parts and ultimately add the vocals. Some of
the titles are Pulling Teeth, For This I Slave and Long Way. I
think the second cd is going to be more focused and I guarantee
it's gonna kick some serious ass!" he says punching his fist
into the air.
"Our future
aim is land a deal with a major label. We feel that we can sell a
million cd's as long as enough people know about it. We've staked
a large reputation in LA and are working our way out. As I
mentioned, we have also picked up distribution over seas. I'm
also proud of our website which is way up in hits. The counter is
real. We
haven't "padded" the counter. The only thing we had to
do was when we were on AOL the counter reset itself, so we got a
counter that we could put the starting number in and went from
there. We also completed a home video plus 2 studio videos of
Bullet & For Your Love that are pretty cool. I think we've
proven that our style of Hard Rock still has a very large
audience out there!"
And indeed it does, Cut Throat are one amazing rock band that you
really should be checking out. As Ken mentioned the new album is
almost ready and is gonna rock even louder.
Pay a visit to the bands website: http://www.cutthroatonline.com and tell 'em Strutter sent ya.