The Highway Overdrive Story

  We had all just been sitting at one of our buddies places(the keyboardist), and doing what we usually did, drank beer..... Lots of beer... And laughed at just about anything and nothing at all... I don't remember how the topic came up but we had started talking about how fun it would be to get together and jam. That's when we realized how serious we were. I had gone out and purchased a bass. A 5-string Squier Affinity series JBass. It is now a fretless bass...  

    Next thing we needed to decide was a name. Once again, we were sitting around a table, this time at the drummers place, drinking beer and smoking cigs, pondering and saying different names out loud. We had tried an online band name generator that would come up with these random names based on the criteria we had entered. Various words pieced together kept coming up... none of them were anywhere near what we were aiming for. But, after some time of sitting, and pondering names, the word Highway kept coming up. It fit with the fact that we wanted to play rock. Rock is usually great for highway driving, as well as the fast pace that some songs tend to have... I said Highway City... Then after some chat about how it didn't really make any of us excited, Overdrive worked it's way in because the music made us want to kick into overdrive. So, that's how Highway Overdrive got it's name.

      Skipping a few months ahead, we had been practicing and having some fun, gaining a reputation as being a "louder" band playing covers like 'Alright Now' by Free, 'Turn The Page' by Bob Seger, and 'I Wanna Be Sedated' by the Ramones. We had put various originals in with the covers that were well appreciated. Most of the time, we had been paid a case or two of beer and whatever was made at the door. On one particular night which I will never forget, we had started teardown after a gig at a local bar. The show had been a great success. By that, I mean that the patrons had a great time, we had our drinks and then some and there was a good sized pot from the door. As I was carefully winding my patch cord up, I heard a commotion coming from the main door in the front of the bar, and I looked up just in time to see the drummer put one of the helpers for that night through the doorway window. What had happened was that the guy had tipped the drummers drink while commenting that he shouldn't have a drink outside, which would have been true had it been in a proper glass and not the plastic cups that had come with our cases if beer. The guy who had gone through the window had walked right by me on his way to the bathroom, face cut up, and bleeding quite badly. He was alright though. But, that was one of those times that still gets mentioned once in a while all these years after.

     Skipping forward some more. We had been renting a rehearsal room under a bar that was a hot spot venue for local and touring bands. We had become somewhat close with the owner, and he had decided that he wanted us to concentrate on our own material while he provided us with a night opening for one of the other bands. We had good feedback from those shows, and had made arrangements to start recording our music. It was convenient for us as we literally had to move our equipment upstairs above the bar. Things ran smoothly, but there were some hiccups that came up here and there. We were usually pretty good at clearing things up.

      One day, the bar owner acting as our manager, had pulled myself and the singer/guitarist aside and had pretty much decided, without us having a say, that we would be held back by our band mates. We were left with a task that, looking back now, should have been done by the manager. It was the first of many mistakes that would rock our boat. Now, the two of us had to find another drummer and keyboardist.

       We went through a few good drummers. One had an odd hobby that I won't mention, another didn't feel up to working with the management, saying we were being blinded by the promise of fortune and fame, and a few others that didn't even get to properly try out. The one that stuck with us was another long time friend whom I had jammed with in the past. She had passion. Many people commented on the fact that she was tiny, but with lots of power. Someone had even pulled me aside after a show and said that her style resembled that of Peter Criss from KISS. 

       One night, after a small 20 minute set of original songs during a likely staged "battle of the bands", my father had been approached by one of the judges on the panel. She had told him that she enjoyed our music and thought that we had potential. After being introduced to her, we had kept in touch. 

        Eventually, we had organized a trip to visit her and her husband in Texas, staying for a week at their house. At this time we had another buddy of ours on lead guitar(he wasn't invited to join us on the trip) and he had introduced us to his friend who joined us on the keyboard. It was a 2-and-a-half days drive down. While there, we had visited with various people who had ties to different venues and members of a band who were as enthusiastic as we were about meeting. When it had come to the last day of the visit, we had seen the Boston Marathon bombing aftermath unfolding on the news. It made for an interesting arrival at the U.S./Canada border. They had set up a temporary border before the actual border crossing where the U.S. authorities had asked us what felt like everything from A-Z... And finally briefly searching the back of our mini-van incase we had any stowaway hidden away. It was a good feeling to finally get home after the long drive. A few months after, we would do the drive once again. But, that will be another story.