I QUIT
WildSide’s former guitarist Benny Rhynedance posts Part 5 in ‘The History of WildSide series
Hollywood, CALIFORNIA — Over the last few months we’ve been posting ‘The History of WildSide’ series. The long, detailed accounts from the band’s former guitarist Benny Rhynedance are an amazing look at the inner workings of a hopeful hairband 5-pack of heroes.
But, like many similar stories they fell short. Even though they seemingly had the world, or at the very least – endless sets of double D tits and plenty of cocaine within reach, they ultimately bit the dirt hard.
Rhynedance is an original and co-founding member of the band with a related history tied to the band’s frontman Drew Hannah dating to the early 80’s. The two started out wearing parachute pants and playing Duran Duran covers in Seattle suburbs.
Until they opted to Bang Their Heads all the way to Hollywood. And that they did. They triumphed to a major label signing, but as high as they got – the high getting got Rhynedance on the doorstep of his own grave. The guitarist details his life changing overdose while on tour and everything that goes with excess.
The extensive blogs to date number parts 1 through 4. Until now – below we give you part 5.
If you haven’t already read parts 1, 2 & 3, or part 4, we encourage a cup of coffee or straight liquor on ice.
There is a lot of great inside detail that will take the reader back to the Sunset Strip, inside the studio, and on top of strippers across the United States of America.
This possibly the final installment is Rhynedance’s view on how things went down during the brutal and bitter end.
We’ll let Benny tell you in his own words. Read on and enjoy.
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“From pre-Grunge Seattle Zero to Hollywood Hair Metal Hero, and Back…”
Here we start the final installment in the History of WildSide Series. So far, Drew Hannah and I have come from Seattle to L.A. in 1986, rocked hard four straight years in Hollywood during the middle of The Sunset Strip hard rock metal scene, met up with Brent Woods, conquered Hollywood as “Kings of The Sunset Strip,” and added talented bassist Marc Simon and the killer Jimmy D on drums. We attained a massive, true rock star, career recording contract with Capitol Records, recorded our debut with the legendary Andy Johns at Eddie Van Halen’s house, released Under The Influence worldwide in 1992, and went on the road for two years. We persevered over blizzards, hurricanes, endless groupies, copious amounts of Jack Daniels, cocaine, economic downturns, changing musical tastes, yet brought our rock show all across the US and Canada. I personally survived an accidental multi-drug overdose and was reborn hard. It’s now the summer of 1993 and grunge has completely taken over the musical landscape. Enter flannel shirts, and the demise of corporate hair metal… oh yeah, and WildSide.
In 1991, we were hiding out in the Coldwater Canyon Van Halen bunker, recording our debut at Eddie Van Halen’s 5150 recording studio. While we weren’t looking, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and the like had seemingly come from nowhere and instantly made flashy, good time, rockers with leather, long hair, explosions, rock anthems, and big amp stacks obsolete and uncool. This happened so fast, it was hard for anyone to really understand.
Since the early 80’s when Quiet Riot blew up the Sunset Strip and brought L.A. metal into everyone’s bedroom, the norm of the musical landscape was always hard rock, loud guitar, killer riffs, party theme, and bad boy, bad behavior rock-n-roll swagger. Excess and hedonism had always been what the 80’s scene was all about. This new grunge-style music from Seattle, and the thought of depressing rock, made up serious themes, no image, thrift store clothing, elementary, low quality instruments and junky, beat up gear was just unthinkable. Who would buy this shit? Nothing like that could ever succeed, could it? Well, it became huge and a runaway success in a few months after appearing in late 1991. People say Kurt Cobain killed rock. I say, “Not really.”
After 10 years of corporate hair metal and repeated release formulas, rock fans were ready for a change. Idol worshipping of rock stars was over. The same formula in the music business for hard rock had been played out too many times. More importantly, the music lovers of the later 70’s and throughout the 80’s that bought and supported the Sunset Strip rock style had grown up, moved on, were now in their late 20’s, early 30’s, had gotten married, started careers and become mature adults. New record buying young people, little brothers and sisters, had shown up. They weren’t programmed into the corporate hard rock formula, like their older siblings had been, and were very open to any new ideas and music genres that were presented. The circle of choices had grown in the music business. Rap had emerged. Grunge had emerged. Pop stars were being made. The infancy of the boy band had been born. It wasn’t just hard rock, metal or radio friendly pop any longer. Being a hard rock band coming out in the early 90’s was the worst timing.
After WildSide had released our debut in 1992, we toured regularly for a year, into the summer of 1993, By this time we were playing bigger venues. It felt like we were progressing, slowly but surely. We headlined the rock stage at the Milwaukee Summerfest. We played to some large crowds. Grunge had soured our audiences on both coasts, but rock fans were still in the middle of the country. So we would just tour in a circle through the Midwest. We would play these bigger shows, and people would love us. It felt awesome. Rock couldn’t be dead? How could it be? We weren’t giving up on our debut, Under The Influence, even though Capitol Records sure had. We used up all of our touring budgets with the label, and were on our own as far as road jaunts went. Our sales had dropped off. Regardless of fans were telling us how great we were, the numbers just weren’t there, and were dropping off fast. Grunge was winning. We initially shipped 50,000 units to record stores, which was a higher standard back then. (In the early 2000’s, companies would ship 1 million of shitty artists! Instant platinum plaque before the first gig!) Secondary orders for Under The Influence numbered somewhere around half the first order. Additional third orders from record stores were sparse. WildSide wasn’t on the radio very much any longer as we weren’t being pushed by the radio dept. at the label. We were left flailing in the wind. No matter how good UTI had turned out and all the heavy weight people that had been involved in the process, it could not be saved. Music tastes had drastically changed. Music fans had changed. Economic climates were tight. The planets had not aligned. Timing was not on our side. In essence, as much as no one wanted to admit it… WildSide and our “All Killer No Filler” UTI debut record were a dead stick.
Meanwhile, and unfortunately for us, Capitol Records was in the midst of a company crisis. New management was hired because of concerning lower profit margins, and label president Hale Milgrim, the guy who signed us, the guy who said we’d be his own personal Guns N Roses, was offered a $16 million-dollar severance package. He took it in a heartbeat. “Bye WildSide! … Bye Hale!” Then, almost every single department at Capitol Hollywood experienced major changes, especially in leadership roles. All the people that liked WildSide and believed in us were gone in an afternoon. POOF! We were fresh outta friends. Not a good position to be in.
As the new president was brought in, he asked for a list of all the bands that Hale Milgrim had personally signed. WildSide was on that small list and at the top of it. Anything that Hale had been involved in was to potentially go with him – out the door. Typical executive personal vendetta bullshit stuff. Our death warrant at Capitol Records had been drafted up and was about to be signed.
Drew Hanna & Benny Rhynedance
Prior to the big Capitol Records shake up, the A&R department called and said, “Hey guys, c’mon in off the road, and let’s start album number two.” WTF? Didn’t we just start all this? It wasn’t platinum yet. It wasn’t gold yet. Hell UTI hadn’t even gone Iron Pyrite in Kazakhstan! Second record? Were they kidding us? UTI is over? We took this as a major slap in the face. Album #2? C’mon! UTI wasn’t a failure in our eyes at that time. How could Capitol Records just give up on Under The Influence? Second record?! No way! They spent over a half a million dollars on the first CD, to set us up for a long career. We were slated to become rock stars. There’s no way they were going to just let that go, right? We’re supposed to be the next Guns N Roses, remember?! Hale said! We couldn’t just be some tax write off, or 1993 loss for the company, could we? Was it that simple? Our debut had barely been out for a year, yet fans were just buying it, people were singing our songs at shows en masse, questionable women were throwing themselves at us 24/7, people were telling us how wonderful we were. We had good free drugs and large egos. Everywhere we went, everything was free, it was all meat-n-cheese platters, no brown M&M’s, pats on the back, and yanks on the crotch. We could get away with almost anything. We were conquering pirates. We’d show up, turn the town upside down, get the gold, steal the women, and leave town in the middle of the night. We were like royalty. Can you see where I’m going with all this nonsense? All that constant unhealthy false adulation provided a high level of false confidence, ego bolstering for some, and tended to cloud our better judgement. All this and we were really only about C-level rockstars in 1993. Sure, we were in some big rock magazines, and lots of people knew of us, but we weren’t huge yet in any sense, but in our minds we were! I can’t imagine what being Motley Crue, Van Halen, Scorpions, Priest, etc. must have been like. Well, yes I can, as a matter of fact…I’d already tasted a bit of that life.
A famous saying in the music business goes like this, “You have your whole life to write and record your first record, and two weeks to do your second, and it must be better than the first.” Boy, is that ever a true statement. The second record you have to crank out fast, and it better be a step up from the first one. I know all of us guys felt like we had just finished writing and recording these UTI tunes that we had cultivated and nurtured for a few years in Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. The thought of having to sit down and write 12 new songs, good ones, and do it quickly, was unthinkable. So what did we do? We said, “FUCK YOU Capitol!” Ugh. Another famously great WildSide decision! We weren’t coming back in off the road. We weren’t writing or recording anything new. We were going to tour until the apocalypse and we were going to make Under The Influence a platinum record, or die trying. “Stick and stay and make it pay.” This wasn’t the best way to go about things. Here we had the label offering us another round of advances for another record, and Virgin Music Publishing doing the same. Why would we turn that down? Lack of logical thinking, maybe? At least we’d have a second record, and still be employed for another year or so, and maybe get to tour again. Who knew? Maybe weather through the grunge storm? But hey, people were telling us how great we were in the Midwest. We were rock stars for God’s sakes! Weren’t we? No one was going to tell US what to do! No one is the boss of US! We knew better, right? Uh…wrong, Bunch of ego-blinded rock-n-roll buffoons. 🙂
Coming in off the road for a small two week break in July of 1993, the state of WildSide at Capitol Records was frail at best. Our team at the label was 90% gone. New A&R execs wanted to focus on money making grunge and alternative music, and dump all those “old dinosaur long hair L.A. metal poseur bands.” If there was a guitar solo anywhere on your record, you were out. No one was returning calls to us or our lame/worthless commission driven management.
That late summer of 1993, two WS band members (ain’t sayin…) ended up doing an interview with L.A. Weekly magazine, which a lot of industry people in Hollywood read. During the interview, things got emotional and the tone took a turn and things got a little nasty with some negative comments being spewed towards our record label and how the business had changed etc. In retrospect, I can understand the anger – we were losing our grip on our future, and we had zero control over it. The L.A. Weekly interview was an angry bitchfest. I’m sure the interviewer was super excited to have some juicy mud-slinging happening. The piece came out a week later, and shit hit the fan. Being on very thin ice as it was, this was all Capitol needed to terminate our career contract. They didn’t need some “played-out hair metal band” on their roster running around talking smack in the press. That’s biting the hand that feeds you. Never a good thing. Regardless if you are unhappy as an artist, sometimes you have to put the ego aside, take a breath, play the game, and keep your mouth shut. It didn’t work out like that. The label got a hold of our manager, who was completely foolish, got in a pissing contest over the phone, and our guy Barry Levine says, “Lose our fucking number, you fucking assholes!” Done. They did exactly what he told them to do. We were officially unsigned again. It was that quick. Having an iron clad, one-inch thick contract for seven albums, worth two million dollars wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. They tore it up and said, “Have a nice life guys!” Our attorney Dennis Rider, the guy that got us the deal, got us out of the deal. We didn’t owe any money to Capitol Records, and they played nice and paid us a small severance package to boot. It was that simple. It was that heartbreaking.
It wasn’t long after that, we decided to go back out on the road again for another round of ego stroking and pretend stardom tour dates. Hell, we had nothing better to do! It was either surfing or hanging out at the beach. Our fans were still out there wondering what the heck, so we went out and gave them more. Playing out every night for the people that loved us became a great way to be able to swallow the fact that our dreams, everything we had worked so hard for, all of our young adult life, back into our late teens, was coming to an end. It was our fans that lifted our spirits every night for the 75 minutes that we were with them.
BRENT WOODS QUITS WILDSIDE. This was a headline in Metal Edge in December of 1993. I remember how bad it looked. After that last round of shows in the Fall of 1993, it was clear that all of us were angry at the hand we had been dealt in the music business. We missed the mark in so many different ways, but not because of our own doing. We provided an awesome product for Capitol to sell. The music business, and the business of becoming a rock star in the 80’s and early 90’s, was a much different game than any of us could have ever imagined. As MTV raised teens, our perception of what a true rock star was, was definitely NOT in line with what the actual reality of the scenario truly was. Wasn’t it supposed to be like Van Halen David Lee Roth craziness in 1984? We just knew it had to be like Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee with Ozzy, snorting up lines of wayward ants at some random truck stop. It had to be about groupie girls doing unimaginable sexual things, and begging to do it. It had to be about Lambo’s and Ferrari’s, big houses (Cribs) in the canyons, stacks of cash, parties, mega stages, amp stacks to the roof, free stuff… This was the perception on MTV in the mid 80’s, (when there were actual videos on MTV!) and the exact reason why Drew Hannah and I moved to Los Angeles. We wanted to be a part of this crazy Sunset Strip scene. This is where it was all happening. This was where we had a real shot at trying to join this never ending rock-n-roll party.
Brent Woods was becoming distant with all of us in the band. During our last tour together in 1993, he would disappear after shows and hole up in a hotel room with some girl. He was making himself scarce. I didn’t understand this. I knew he was pissed about things, but didn’t know exactly how much. One night after we finished the set in Colorado Springs, and were preparing to do our encore of Balls To The Wall by Accept (we loved that song and always did it as an encore), Brent announced his fingers were sore and bleeding, and that he was done. He turned his back and immediately walked out of the building to the tour bus. All of us went from smiling, sweaty and excitedly jumping around, to stone face and like, “WHAT?” The crowd was cheering and chanting, and we were ready to go back out. Now, we could have just called it a night and been fine. No big deal. One of our guys was messed up. But, I think it was the fact that Brent just walked away from us, no regrets and bad attitude, that pissed everyone off (preview of things to come). It seemed out of character for him. We were finishing off a show here. You gotta suck it up and finish no matter what. When we played the famous Harpo’s in Detroit and I was deathly ill from some sort of nasty flu bug, puking and shitting side stage in a bucket between songs, I would still run back out there, play guitar, and sing into the mic with chunky puke breath. Bassist Marc Simon, my mic-stand mate, must’ve enjoyed that! Ew!
As Brent strolled out the back and the crowd was chanting “Wi-ld-Side, Wi-ld-Side, Wi-ld-Side,” Drew looked at me and said, “Fuck it, let’s GO!” “Benny, you got this?” I said, “HELL YES!” set my wireless transmitter to STUN, and ran out on stage and started Balls To The Wall, with amps at 11. The crowd went wild. ONE MORE SONG! We were slicing their heads off with the volume. Meanwhile, the worst had happened for Brent. He was already on the bus eyeballing the meat-n-cheese platter, then heard us starting to rip into it, inside the venue. OH SHIT! He realized we had went on without him. This was a first, and the only time something like this ever occurred. He was pissed off I’m sure, but he ran back inside real fast, and got back on the stage just in time to play his solo, and finish the show. Afterwards wasn’t pretty. There was a lot of yelling going on. Things got heated. It wasn’t the normal squabble. This particular incident had a different tone. Brent’s face had a different look. He wasn’t the same guy anymore. Even a lot of Brent’s newer musical ideas that he brought to the table in 1993, like Hemi-Cuda, Killing Machine, and Six Feet Under had taken a different musical tone. It was really industrial, drum machines, way heavier, darker, and not really similar at all to the hook-laden Under The influence anthem sound we had crafted.
I think what Brent was going through was heavy duty grief from the death of our record and our failure with Capitol Records. Honestly, it was hard to fathom what was happening to us. We were losing everything and it was going away fast. All of us felt the loss of it.
Brent took the recording of the music very seriously, just as I did. We both enjoyed the whole process of recording and being in the studio until all hours. He worked particularly hard on his big part of the songwriting, and I know he spent a lot of time recording his guitar parts to get them just right. In all actuality, probably too much late night time was spent alone with an impaired Andy Johns at 5150, as the whole process went somewhat sideways. Brent decided to RE-RECORD over MY guitar parts, and RE-CUT ALL of the Marc Simon’s bass parts on the record, and didn’t tell anyone about it. Just did it. To me, that move was unconscionable. It’s not like you can run right back in and record again. Once the time is gone and the parts are erased, that’s it. Your turn is up.
In my opinion, and as common sense dictated, Brent was heavily emotionally invested in seeing Under The Influence be a success. I’m sure, in his mind, he felt UTI was HIS album. He did spend the most time in the recording chair, after all. Fact is, it was ALL of our album that we ALL were a part of. We were a band and a team of 5 guys, each with a valuable and unique contribution. When it was clear it wasn’t going to be a platinum seller, and how times had changed, he became distant. I can understand his disappointment. We were all beyond disappointed, but Brent took it extremely hard, and he did it silently. After we were done touring, he and I spent a last night in some Phoenix hotel room, as we were both catching a flight the next day. He didn’t say a word to me about quitting WildSide. Zero. We B.S.’d a bit that night, and I went to a hang out with some fans. He didn’t want to go. The next morning, he got up early and took off. I never saw Brent Woods, or talked to my friend Brent Woods again after that. That was late September of 1993. It’s been 23 years. I don’t have a clue if/why he has any beef with me about anything. Wish I knew, and I wish he would return an email…
In talking with other guys in the band just recently, it turns out that two or three days after Brent and I parted ways in Phoenix, and after getting back to Los Angeles, Drew and Brent got into a knock-down, drag-out fist fight, and Brent announced he was quitting. I never knew any of this happened. So that solves that mystery. Aside from Drew and I, Brent was the first guy to join us in WildSide, and the first guy to quit WildSide. Not too long after, Brent hooked up with notorious Hollywood bass player Robbie Crane, and the two were playing for Vince Neil on the Carved In Stone tour. Brent spent about 5 or 6 years with Vince. BRENT WOODS QUITS WILDSIDE.
So, after spending five years in the band with us, Brent quit after a little more than a year of UTI being released on Capitol. Drew and I, along with Marc and Jimmy decided to continue on and write new music. We thought for sure another record label would pick us up. Surely WildSide was a valuable commodity, already having a fan base and been “in the club” and on a major record label. Wishful thinking. NOBODY wanted anything to do with rock bands at all. Now, if we wore lots of flannel shirts, ripped up shorts, grandma’s old sweater, scuffed combat boots, never showered and wrote depressing songs, we might’ve had a shot. Fact is, our style of hard rock was amazingly not really desired any longer at that time.
We looked for another guitar player and ended up auditioning Jon E. Love from Love/Hate, but it didn’t work out. We had a few rehearsals, but he was not in line with us musically. We wanted to get Dave Lizmi from The Four Horsemen, but he declined. Jimmy knew Bruce Draper from Geffen’s Records Graveyard Train, and we decided to jam with him. Bruce was a cool guy, and played a black Les Paul, just like Brent did. Bruce had shoulder length brown hair just like Brent had. If you squinted a little bit, Bruce was a semi-ringer for Brent. Perfect. He was in.
We had a two night sold out concert event booked in Salt Lake City in January of 1994, so having Bruce aboard worked out great. Bruce was a lot like a Jimi Page guitarist with a little bit of Keith Richards mixed in. He learned all our tunes really quick and we headed off out of town for our “pretend rock star” set of gigs. I didn’t know Bruce very well, and he was a bit older than us. The two of us really hadn’t spent much time together. He was a different musical guy than the rest of us. He was very blues oriented, and not really a Van Halen-esque, big rock player. He had a Black Crowes vibe, and that was the best way to describe him.
When we got to Salt Lake City, things went well. The first night was sold out and fans didn’t seem to really know Brent was gone. Just as I thought. Semi-ringer. Bruce was getting it done. Not as flashy as Brent, but a different flavor. Before the second night at a different venue, called The Power Plant, a place we’d never played before, they sent a limo over to the hotel to pick us up. This gigantic titanic of a white Cadillac limo pulled up, and Bruce and I jumped in. None of the other guys were around, so I told the driver to take off. It was 20 minutes to the venue. Bruce and I didn’t say one word to each other. We just sat in pure silence the whole way. I’ll never forget that ride. It was surreal. I looked out the window at the snow in the mountains surrounding SLC, and I knew this was probably the last time this band was going to play together. It was the last time we would get the rock star treatment. I could feel it. Or maybe the truth of it all was that it was actually going to be ME that wasn’t going to play with these guys ever again.
Our gigs in Salt Lake went great. We came home and went into a weird hiatus. Drew met a girl from Louisiana, and fell madly in love with her, which was a first for Drew. He was really smitten by this gal. She was going to Australia for some temporary job offer or something the spring of 1994. Drew announced he would follow her there and surprise her. All of us said, “Uh dude… what about WildSide getting another record deal, and working on new music?” Drew said, “I think if we tell the record companies that the singer of WildSide lives in Australia, it will be a really cool mystique type of thing for the band…” UH, WHAT? There was no talking Drew out of this. I didn’t agree with the thinking. We needed to keep the WildSide fires burning if we were going to jump onto another major label and keep our career alive. It was going to be hard to write killer new songs and come up with the follow up to UTI if Drew wasn’t around to write with. Already, Drew and I had messed around with the beginning ideas to Looking To Move, The Grave, and Company Of Users (these songs would later end up on that next CD that Drew did, the 1995 Lizard record, but they ended up turning into full blown Alice In Chains reject grunge songs – nothing like WildSide UTI).
So, off Drew went to Australia, to go after his love interest. Good for him, bad for us. Myself, Marc Simon, Jimmy D. and Bruce Draper rarely got together at all, and it felt like the band had broken up. We were in limbo and doing nothing. Grunge music was at its peak. Kurt Cobain had just been found dead a month earlier, and all hell was about break loose with the grunge movement that had dominated the music scene for the past 2 years.
I certainly didn’t like the new direction our songwriting was going. It felt like were going grunge. Bruce was suggesting stuff that was very weird grunge sounding. Drew was liking the ideas. I wasn’t having it. It felt like we were bandwagon jumping. None of the stuff we were coming up with was sounding like WildSide to my ears. It sounded like a different band completely. When Drew finally returned from Australia, I didn’t even get a chance to hook up with him and talk about our next move. We had a phone conversation that turned ugly. I was pissed about the whole abandonment of the band, him running off to the other side of the world, the writing of the bad grunge reject music, and just the state we were all left in. I unloaded on him over the phone. Of course, he said “Fuck you!” then I said, “No, fuck you!” and that was that. I never saw Drew Hannah again after this conversation in June of 1994. I still haven’t. (doesn’t that seem so silly?)
BENNY RHYNEDANCE QUITS WILDSIDE.
Drew went on with Marc, Jimmy and Bruce and did the grunge record on a private indie label, and they released it in 1995. Fans were shocked at what they heard. It wasn’t the WildSide they knew and loved. It was a bad grunge band called Wildside. I used to say I hated that CD. But a few years ago, I really listened to it backwards and forward, and I figured out what it was all about. Drew did a good job at attempting to stay relevant in what was then a very hostile musical landscape and an impossible music business to survive in. That couldn’t have been easy. Grunge had run its course, obliterated hard rock, and Hootie & The Blowfish and MatchBox Twenty were about to start their run. What rocker dudes could survive this? Very few were successful during this time. Van Halen had a #1 album in 1995 but only after they went silent for 4 years.
All of us guys went our separate ways. I’ve stayed friends with Marc Simon over the years. Brent? Never talked to him after 1993. Nothing. Why? Couldn’t tell you. I’ve emailed him and messaged him as of late but get no response. Jimmy D.? Could never locate him. Just recently began speaking with him again via email, and he sounds great. Drew? We talked via email a few times in 2009. That didn’t last long. Things went south fairly quickly. Old wounds still hadn’t healed. Just recently Drew and I have had some phone conversations and shared some fun talks about our old days together in Seattle with NuProphet, our band ROGUE that went to L.A., YOUNG GUNNS, and us starting WildSide, etc. Overall, Drew and I seem to have aged long enough to get past whatever goofy shit went down more than twenty years ago when we were just boys. I’d say two decades is long enough to hold any kind of baggage. Drew and I started this whole rock stardom journey together as teenagers, sacrificed our college educations, gambled with our lives together, and lived through an incredible experience together over a ten year period. From watching Van Halen in Seattle on the 1984 tour, to recording at Eddie Van Halen’s 5150 studio in 1991, to living out of a suitcase and touring everywhere for years, and achieving almost all of our rock-n-roll dreams. That is something that no one can ever take away. It all happened, and it was a fucking awesome adventure. Each of us guys in the band lived the life of ten men before we were 30. Not many can claim that.
Over the years, WildSide has gotten back together for a one off show, here and there. Once in 2004 in Salt Lake City, and twice for local Hollywood gigs in 2010. It’s always been without me participating. Granted, they all live in L.A. and I left Hollywood in 1998, so I’ve never been around there, but I’ve always wanted to be a part of the shows. Now, there will be another show this year on September 3rd, in Golden, Colorado for a local promoter and their annual Wolf Fest show at a club called The Buffalo Rose. Will it be a complete and legit UTI Capitol band reunion with all of us five guys? Who’s to say? I know I want to do it. I know the fan base wants to see it. I know Marc, Jimmy and Drew have expressed interest in bringing me back onboard. Would I like to be onstage with these four guys again? Absolutely. Would our fans enjoy it? Totally. So many never got the chance to see us back then, or just recently discovered our music and want to see it now. There is something to be said for an old group that gets it together and comes back for the fans. I hope it can happen. It certainly would be for all the right reasons this time around. Besides, it just feels like the right time now. It’s been long enough. Two decades is more than enough time to hold a grudge.
I think I’m gonna need a Bonus Part 6 to happen here…this WildSide story isn’t really over quite yet.
Read parts 1, 2 & 3, and part 4.
Differing Opinion Disclaimer: I’ve put this disclaimer here on the end of all my chapters of “The History of WildSide,” mainly as a courtesy to my other band mates. Saying that everything here is, “MY point of view on how things happened for my band and that others may have seen it differently and experienced different things,” is, well, in all honesty, just a nice way of me saying, “Hey guys, sorry if I’m airing any perceived soiled laundry, but this is what the truth is.” What I’ve written down in ALL five chapters is completely factual, and a firsthand eye witness account of what happened in WildSide – no filters, no revisionist history, no alternate universe, no bullshit. If others can’t remember stuff from the early 90’s, that certainly doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. These are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed. This IS what happened, and what WAS experienced.