| Dark Knights were formed from the ashes of the band "Butcher Boy", which broke-up in November 1992. The remaining members, Bart Balderson and myself, Billy Galke, were determined to form a new band and continue playing. We needed a bass player, a singer, and a place to practice at bare minimum. In January 1993, we found a bass player, Keith West, who had practice space. However, Keith informed us he would be moving at the end of February, so the hunt for practice space was on again. By a complete fluke,in mid-February, Bart and I attended a party near Dumfries/Manassas Va. at the home of our soon-to-be rythum guitar player, Terry Woods. Bart and I had never met Terry before, we discovered he was a guitar player,and he had a sound proofed room for practice! Needless to say, we all wound up jamming for a couple hours. Terry was impressed by us, and we with him...so the descision was easy...., we asked Terry to join and he agreed. This is where the creepy, gloomy and freaky Dark Knights bass player delima began. Keith was a decent bass player, but when it came to driving somewhere to go practice, he started whining about it the very first time we were going to Terry's. That pissed me off right there, then he asks for a ride to practice! Nope!...I refused, and that was it, he never showed for practice again, he was out. We then took on a bass player I had played with for several years, Greg Moses. He was pre-disposed to most of my original material and fit right in. Now the search was on for a singer. We placed an ad in Northern Virginia Rythum, and bulliten boards at music shops. We only got two responses for our efforts, and the second responder was Mike Gaskell. Mike was full of motivation,excited, and joined the band in mid-June 1993. After a mere two weeks, we did our first gig at a biker party. We only had one set of material (about 10/12 songs), and played twice, once during the day, once at night. The crowd (about 75-100) loved us. A week later we had our first club gig and Dark Knights were off and running, with Mike Gaskell(vocals),Greg Moses(bass),Terry Woods(rythum guitar), Bart Balderson(drums),Billy Galke(myself,lead guitar). We had our first "big" gig on October 29,1993 opening for the band "Child's Play"(who had a hit song on radio w/"Wind") at Tiki Fala. The place was packed, 100+ people, we were supposed to go on at 9:30, but at 9:40, Greg(bass), had not shown up yet and we decided to play without him. At that very moment, he showed up. The gig went well, but we were all un-nerved about Greg's late arrival, especially when we found out that he picked this particular evening to do dinner at Red Lobster! His days were numbered from then on. He got himself a girlfriend back in July and was missing most practices ever since. We auditioned a new bass player in late-November, Jason . He was really good and was familiar with most of our covers and learned the originals quickly. But, the bass haunt bit us again. On December 3,1993, we were again booked to open for "Child's Play" (they liked us and requested), and Jason just seemeed to freak out. He didn't play anything as rehearsed, this guy was just out of it. He wasn't stoned or anything, he was just playing as hard and fast as he could!!, random notes! He apparently never played a gig before is all I can figure. So, we had a bass player problem again...after the gig he didn't show for practice, call, or anything. Five months later, he died in a car accident!! By mid-December we aquired another bass player, Mike, ..don't remember the last name. On January 22,1994, we went into the studio to record a three-song demo.This was a real rushed job as we were entering a 98 Rock radio songwriting/demo contest. We recorded three of my originals, "One Desire","Skeleton Dance" and "Maiden". Only "Maiden" had finished lyrics, the others were written by Terry and myself in about twenty minutes. I came up with the plan...I would write a line, then Terry the next, until we had enough. Results.....kinda' lame lyrically, but this was a real hurry-up job. We spent 10 hours in the studio, ( 1" tape at 15ips) on a 24 track system. The engineer on this thing really sucked! This demo didn't sound 24 track at all ! I've made better sounding tapes w/8 open mics! Needless to say, we didn't win the contest, I think they played the Top-Five contestants on the radio. A couple weeks later we were having a party and Mike (bass player dogma again), kinda' weirded out on us that night. Apparently he was a "recovering" addict, something we didn't know 'til that evening. He kept mumbling things about us meeting his girlfriend, and how he didn't want any of us to hit on her. I guess he had a bit too much to drink....or somethin'.We never saw/heard from him afterwards. He left behind a massive Sunn bass cabinet, ( we dubbed "The Coffin"). This thing had four 18" speakers and 300 watt capable!! Anyway, we never saw him again. We continued to practice without a bass player, 2 or 3 times a week for the next 7 months, turning down gigs all along the way. In hindsight, we should have played some of those gigs w/o bass, is/was it that important to have bass? Then, in late-June, I was suprised to see we had a new bass player, Steve Attex. He had been hanging around practices from the start, very accomplished musically(guitar teacher), and ready to go.He learned all our songs,and we added a few more too. We now had enough material for two long sets and finally ready to headline. (We did headline once before in Sept. '93,but it was a one set/three band show) On October 5,1994 we headlined a show at Tiki Fala, but the audience was sparse. We played many gigs that summer/fall and some were really good shows. Then, about November, we got booked for a gig at The Bayou in Georgetown! Steve apparently knew people that helped get us in. This was the greatest night of my life! (I won't speak for the others.) We were the opening act for a band called "Kahnfusion", a fusion band.(I've never heard of them either.) They kinda' sounded like Pink Floyd/Steely Dan w/brass...pretty cool, I liked 'em. Our set came off great, we were very prepared for this,well rehearsed. There was a good crowd response too,with most of our set being original material. This gig paid as much as 3 or 4 "regular" gigs, and we were treated in a very professional manner.(Management sent us a case of beer in the greenroom.) The stage manager's name was Lois Lane...I'll never forget that either.After the show, I was coming out of the greenroom to get a couple of beers at the bar, it took me an hour. People kept approaching/engaging me about the show/music. 3 different people were asking me questions like "What kind of music is that?"," What do you call that music?","That style sounds new".......I was overwhelmed!! These questions/respect were "music" to my ears! My/our material was so original, they liked it and couldn't categorize it. And I was quite proud of that. Someone called it "a new form of Southern Rock". I really don't know where that came from. Sadly, Bart...the drummer, quit the band (for reasons I still don't know) in May of 1995. By August/September we (Terry and I) tried to carry on with a new rythum section. A bass player named Chris Navarro, and a fantastic drummer named Ryan White. Unfortunately, those guys hated Mike, the singer, so we decided to let him go because Chris and Ryan were so damn good! That left myself to do the singing...and I'm not a good singer. We practiced hard for 5 months, but when it came time to play a gig I couldn't bring myself to sing in public to a paying audience. This and other...personal reasons....compelled me to abandon the project for good in January 1996. (SORRY GUYS!) |