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4 Lads from The Valley The 4 Lads was started in the fall of 1995 as something fun for a bunch of us goofy Beatles fanatics to do. I had just finished a pretty extensive tour with Foreigner when I got a call from Brett Tuggle, who had played keyboards in the David Lee Roth band with me. He wanted to know if I'd like to put a band together with Rocket Ritchotte and Jamie Hunting (the guitarist and bass player from the David Lee Roth band) that would play Beatles songs exclusively. It wasn't going to pay much money but it would be a lot of fun! Of course, I said yes... We started rehearsing around November of 1995 and after a couple of weeks of really honing in on the parts (those Beatles songs are a lot tougher than you think!!), we started to do some gigs in the Los Angeles area. We warmed up with a couple of gigs at places like Pelican's Retreat and The Sagebrush Cantina before taking up a semi-permanent residency at a club called Cafe Cordiale. We learned early Beatles ("Please, Please Me, "Twist and Shout" etc.) and later Beatles, including songs like "Sgt. Pepper's", "A Day In The Life", "Golden Slumbers/The End" and several other pretty complex, orchestrated songs that even The Beatles never played live (technology is our friend!) and it didn't take long for the word to get around that this band was really good and a lot of fun. Pretty soon, the owner of Cafe Cordiale, Peter May, was going crazy because he couldn't keep the crowds under control! There was a line down the block to get in and we were starting to get some curious celebrity guests in the audience such as Billy Crystal, Roy Firestone, Larry David (creator of Seinfeld) and many others. Eventually we did some other gigs for some corporate clients like Sony, ElectroVoice and Peavey as well as a few private parties, including one for the aforementioned Larry David where we had people like Rob Reiner coming up to sit in with the band! Everyone loves The Beatles!! Of course, as much fun as it was to play in that band, the reality of having to make a living reared it's ugly head and we all had to go back to our other touring and session gigs. Playing with The 4 Lads has been one of my favorites in a long and lucky career. A splendid time was had by all!! |
