My first band and first major "tour" to....Florida? (Summer 1990)

During the summer of 1990 , just a couple of months after my dad began to pastor a new church, I met a guy named Tellis who was a youth minister from Florida. There was a decent sized parsonage behind the church, across a big field, that was vacant. This was because my parents already owned a home in nearbye Stockbridge. So, Tellis was allowed to move into the parsonage and eventually his family did too. I will never forget the first night I went over to the parsonage with some friends to meet Tellis for the first time.

At first, I didn't think much of Tellis. He seemed very enthusiastic and had a lot of ideas he wanted to try out. In fact, his extremely extroverted and zealous personality almost seemed to force me into introversion. However, the more he spoke of his past experiences the more optimistic I became about my future with this new youth group under his leadership. Then, as if to close the deal, Tellis took us into the den and played some recordings of him singing that he recorded in a friends studio in Florida.. This guy was actually a good singer and now he was talking my language. I asked Tellis where he recorded those tracks and he said in a studio in Tampa, Florida which belonged to guy named Paul Richardson. Paul was the son of Carl Richardson who worked with my dad years earlier in Cleveland, Tennessee. Tellis wanted to start a band there at the church and thought that renovating the garage, in the parsonage, would be a good idea. He had already started building a stage and setting up stage lights. To me, this was great news.


These days, churches with there own rock bands, or some kind of band, are very common place. Almost anyone can make a c.d. and record in a studio somewhere. And, almost anyone can pay to have copies made of the c.d. and distribute the c.d.s themselves. Advances in recording, multi media, and production technology have enabled, even the least talented artists, to be able to deliver a fairly good product to consumers. However, this was the cusp of the decade where rock music was either worldly, or demonic. A church having a rock band was a somewhat revolutionary concept. Especially considering the fact that my dad's church was a Church of God church out of Cleveland, TN. and most of those churches simply had a piano, organ, drums, and an all volunteer choir. But this seemed to be what I was hoping for.

Not long after, we had our first youth service. Dozens of teens were crammed into that garage and the stage lights bathed the room in a burgundy red glow. I was surprised to see my friend Mark's cousin Daryl show up with his guitar. Another guy whom I had never met before named Brian, showed up with his bass. Brian was a full time manager at a Radio Shack there in Fayetteville. I was very nervous because, although I had played in many gospel worship service settings, I had never played in a real rock setting before. To say I didn't know the music was an understatement. Let alone the basic tenants of rock and roll music theory. However, I would be getting my first crash course in Christian Rock 101 very soon.

Well, to put it plainly, Tellis started singing and we started playing. I know I messed up some times, I was about half a beat ahead of the groove other times. I wasn't near as good a drummer as I am now but we got through it. And I'll never forget the grand finale on our last tune. I mean, I was going crazy hitting all the cymbals and drums as fast as I could. Suddenly I heard a loud, "Yeeaaahhh"!! I looked to my right and behind the small curtain, off the side of the little stage, was Mark at the little soundboard, that I suppose was borrowed from the main sanctuary, giving the Ronnie James Dio heavy metal sign with his hand. Yeah, Mark was quite a charachter, He was also a great help when it came to moving gear at some of the gigs we did around town as well as buying all of us dinner at the Pizza Hut.

Also, not long afterwards, my dad threw this huge gospel music bash out on the front lawn of the church. It was some kind of talent show or something and, since our new band was there, we got to play. Well, this was my first chance to actually play rock and roll in front of a crowd. We still didn't have a name so Tellis quickly came up with the name Malachi. Anyway, when I sat behind that drum set, Tellis told all of us what we were going to play. It was a song called "Feel the Fire". The tempo was like this: One......two......three......four. The song began with this line, "I need to feel His touch in the morning and late at night".

Boy, I was so nervous though. Well, Tellis called me, "Way Cool" because, at the time, I never smiled when I played. He said I would look much better wearing some kind of shades. Anyway, he looked back at me and said, "Kick it off Way Cool".

Well, he asked for it. So I clicked it off like this. Onetwothreefour!! I just knew, before we completed the first bar in the intro, that I had clicked off the song WAY TOO FAST! Well, not to be deterred, Tellis tried to sing the lyrics anyway and we all just rocked on! So, when Tellis started singing it sounded like this, "Ineedtufelhstuchinthamorninglatenight"! I mean he was singing so fast his tongue was literally out of his mouth just a flapping away.

Those people, out in the crowd, over six hundred of them and all die hard Southern Gospel music fans, just stared at us and seemed to know about as much as what was going on as we did . I'll never forget that blunder. After we left the stage, Tellis came up to me laughing and said, "Man I had to sing that song so fast I sounded like I was speaking in tongues"!

The embarrassment was short lived however. I was more than excited when Tellis began to talk about going to Florida to do a "tour" and record a demo for our church band that me and a few guys formed for the youth group. We would record down there in the studio owned by Tellis' associates in Tampa and play a couple of bookings at some local churches he knew of.

One thing we were missing however, in fact two things. We needed a sound man and a keyboard player. Well, we got our soundman. He was a guy named Jerry that Brian, our bass player, had known from school. He would always wear these real tight spandex pants to practice. Hence, he earned the nickname...tater. Yep, that's what we called him. And when he would get to laughing he made this funny sound when he gasped for breath that sounded kind of like, "Heeeee".Well, anyhow, Jerry also played keyboard so that took care of that. Our sound guy became our keyboard player.

I guess it was around the end of August and I met the guys, as well as Tellis, at the church out in the front parking lot. There was Daryl, our guitar player. Brian, our bass player. And Jerry, our keyboardist/sound tech. Also, out of the blue, Daryl's dad decided to allow us to borrow his entire P.A. system to take to Florida. That was a major help. Of course, the funniest thing about that sound system was that when we unplugged it from the wall, after a night of gigging, it made a loud whistling sound followed by a sound closely resembling human flatulence. So, emulating that sound became an inside joke for the entire group on that trip. In fact, during the rough cut of the demo we recorded one can here Jerry, the keyboardist, make that same sound with his lips in his microphone. So, we made sure everything was loaded into Tellis' trailor, climbed into Tellis' station wagon, and headed south.

Boy, I loved road trips with a passion. It was as if the Lord had made me to be on the road. Even as a young boy the thought of hitting the road on a long journey nearly sent chills down my little spine. Seeing all the sights was so exciting and I especially loved stopping at restaurants and motels for the night. Especially if they had a nice swimming pool. Now, I was embarking on the first real road trip since my short stay in Sacramento, California with my grandparents back in the summer of 1986.

I'll never forget crossing the Florida/Georgia line. Everything seemed to drastically change. I began to see palm tree's and even the weather was much more humid than I expected. Well, we eventually stopped at a Sonny's Bar B Que in Lake City, Florida. I really wasn't in the mood for a Bar B Que buffet but I was outnumbered. It can be said that you never truly know someone until you live with them for a while. Well, I guess that goes for going on the road with them as well. Tellis, Brian, and Jerry were some of the loudest, most obnoxious guys I had ever had dinner with. I don't know what it was. They were fine every other time but when they sat down to eat together they behaved like a bunch of Vikings. Or worse, like Klingons!

Screaming, yelling, laughing really loud, and talking very loudly with their mouths full of coleslaw mixed with Brunswick stew with small clumps falling down to the floor or on the table. I think I got hit in the eye with a small chunk of coleslaw that was spat across the table. Daryl later confessed to me that he was so embarrassed that he felt like walking back outside to the car. I couldn't blame him. I mean, people kept looking in our direction from all the way in the other dining room and even a cook or two had to step outside the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. I just sat there very quiet, with of course, an occasional belly laugh because I just couldn't help it.

Well, we hopped back in the car after dinner and headed for Orlando for the night. Apparently Brian's grandmother had offered to put us up for the night at her apartment. As we arrived in Orlando, I noticed a city with buildings that seemed to be covered in neon lights. We also listed to a lot of music on the way down, and as we were passing through a section of downtown Orlando, a song by Tom Petty called, "Running Down A Dream" began to play and Tellis was like, "Ok, guys. Listen to this song. Were in school now." Yeah, ok Tellis. The way the trip eventually turned out was anything but running down a dream. Perhaps we should have been listening to Bon Jovi's "Living On A Prayer". Good thing my dad gave me 250 dollars cash for my birthday.

Well, when we finally got to Brian's grandmother's we were exhausted. We walked into the living room for a brief meet and greet. We began to talk about sleeping arrangements and the like. Then, I noticed the nightly news on television. I always found news reporting from other states and cities interesting because it is so different from what I am accustomed too.

Anyway, the big story in Florida that night, other than the continuous military build up in the Persian Gulf, was the horrible murder of five college students in Gainesville, Florida. Eventually it would be discovered to be the work of a drifter and career bank robber/thief turned psycho slasher named Danny Rollings from Shreveport, Louisianna. He would eventually be tried and convicted of those crimes and be given lethal injection in October 2006. Some veteran Florida Law enforcement officials would claim that the Gainsville murders were the worst they had seen since Ted Bundy. So, everyone was encouraged to stay indoors with the doors locked. Well, Tellis had already said he was not going to leave the gear in his trailer unattended. So, we really held him to his promise." Get out there Tellis. Good luck and hopefully the serial killer won't get you too. Ha ha ha ha".

Other than the fact that we drove around the state an awful lot I must admit that very little of what we did had anything to do with a "tour". We did play at a large church in West Palm Beach. They seemed rather surprised to find out a band was playing for their youth group that night. I'm not sure Tellis cleared it with the people in charge. However, we played anyway. But, after the little show that we did, and as I was breaking down my gear, and putting them back into their cases, I heard Tellis tell the other guys to get out and mingle with the people in the group to find us a place to stay that night. Whaaaat??

Well, sure enough he was serious. So, some poor guy was kind enough to take us to his house, where we all piled into the living room and he literally said, "Mom, Dad, this is the band that played at church tonight and I told them they could stay with us". Unbelievable. Well, I slept on the floor. And, other than the full moon which hung high in the Florida sky, and a distant thunderstorm that rumbled for hours, that's all I remember until the next night.

I really enjoyed the weather in Florida. It was just so different than what I was accustomed too. I had always found thunderstorms to be fascinating but the ones in Florida were just strange. The sun could be shining and the birds singing then suddenly a torrential rain would follow a loud clap of thunder. Then, as almost as soon as it began, the sun would come out again and the humidity was even more sweltering. One time in particular I remember we were crossing a very long bridge over the ocean (which in Florida seemed to be a common occurrence) and I could literally see a deluge just a couple of hundred feet away. I mean, this was the kind of weather where it could literally rain on just one side of the street. Fascinating!

I'll never forget one memorable experience I had late one night near West Palm Beach. Me, Brian, and Jerry decided to leave our motel room and take a walk around. Nearby there was a marina and the water was very dark and still. I had never in my life seen so many houseboats. These were all real high dollar too as well as personifying the word. The moon was large and hung high in the sky like a lone fluorescent snowball on asphalt.

However, off in the distance, I could see a massive storm cloud that was moving very fast. There was a lot of activity in this cloud because the lightning near the top was very frequent. And the light from the moon, as well as all the flashes of lightning, illumined this monster in shades of blue, green and even red. It was moving so fast I couldn't help but think of the 1977 movie, Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Slowly the wind began to pick up and the rumble of a distant thunder became louder and louder. Now, every time I hear the song, "Fade into you" by Mazzy Star I think about the time I stood beside that marina and watched one of the most awesome storms approach that I had ever seen.

Well, the following night, I will never forget we were on some back Florida country two lane black top, listening to the radio as usual, and the news came on and said that legendary blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn was killed in a helicopter crash. I wasn't much into blues then but even I knew that was a major loss to the entertainment Industry as well as his fans worldwide. The broadcast included interviews with blues artists who knew Stevie Ray Vaughn personally and who were at his last concert that night.as well as past live performances.

The next destination we had in mind was Tampa, Florida. Of course we also visited Sarasota and went to the famous Thoroughbread's Music Store. I bought a new snare drum stand with some of the money my dad had given me. We got to Tampa, again, under the premise of playing for a youth group. This time, however, they apparently knew we were coming. We got to set up on a big stage in a gym, which to me at the time, was big stuff. In fact, most of what we were doing was big stuff to me anyway. Of course, had I known then what I  know now I would have clearly seen that the band was already in danger of a split.

Tellis, because he was the lead singer, had the philosophy that he was the head honcho and spoke to other members of the band, during practice, in a very bossy kind of way that Brian, also a strong personality, found very offensive and galling. In fact, after the show that Sunday night, we decided to have a practice. Brian and Tellis got into it and Brian just dropped his Bass on the stage and walked off. Of course Tellis followed him the whole time stating (according to Brian) his case that since he was the lead singer that gave him "supreme authority". The truth is, when your on the road with people, in any situation, there is very little privacy and personal space. So, some personalities, who normally get along, will eventually grain on each other's nerves. In fact, by the near end of this trip, everybody was getting on my nerves. And believe me, that can be a hard thing to do.....unless one has a serious personality problem.

I seemed like the most easygoing person of the bunch, except for Daryl. However, even Daryl had a particular habit that I found quite mystifying. The first time we stopped to eat on our road trip Daryl saved his extra large drinking cup, and occasionally, used it as a spit cup for his Skoal habit. However, after a few days, what was once a small amount of Skoal juice, now filled over half the cup. And I tell you, it reeked. It smelled like rotten spearmint. Still, Daryl kept that cup with him at all times. It seemed to be an inextricable appendage of his body.

Well, one night the breaking point finally came. I was sitting in the back seat next to Daryl and the other guys were sitting up near the front laughing, and talking very loud, as usual. Up ahead I noticed we were about to cross some railroad tracks but I also noticed Tellis had no intention of slowing down. Well, I will never forget when the front and rear tires hit those tracks. Whuhwham! Whuhwham! I will certainly never forget what happened next. Daryl's knee was knocked up a few inches into the air right into the bottom of that disgusting spit cup. Next thing I knew I was covered in gooey Skoal juice. Gag! Gag! Ugh! I might have well been spit on by some camel with intestinal cancer. It was horrible! I had to go to a public restroom to change clothes and everything.

Despite the fact we went to the beach, swimming in this public pool and that, it seemed the amount of leisure time could barely keep the guys from arguing about something. Whether it be political or theological. However, especially, theological. You see most of the guys in the band were Baptists. However Tellis was a Pentecostal and he was very zealous for the Pentecostal doctrine of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance. So, needless to say, this made for some very lively debate and, too my surprise, the Baptists in the argument held their ground pretty well. In fact, Brian especially, delivered such a convincing counter to some of Tellis' arguments (about mandatory Spirit Baptism etc) that I actually began to wonder if Baptists were more sound in the scriptures than I was led to believe.


So, that night at the church, after the total meltdown between Brian and Tellis, we all walked into a tiny little library of sorts to go to sleep. It seemed like the most logical place because the carpet was very lush and soft and it was well air conditioned. I didn't take long to get relaxed on that floor because I was utterly exhausted. The next thing I knew was that I was suddenly awakened by the bright fluorescent lights turning on. I heard Brian groan and the other guys begin to move around. Then, I heard a small gasp. It was a woman. Apparently the building we were staying in was a private Christian Academy and we had all sacked out in their library overnight. I tell ya, the last thing that poor elementary school teacher expected to see when she opened that little library door was a bunch of big hairy guys in sleeping bags in their undies. And who knows what the long term effects that sight had on those poor children who were all standing in a line just outside the door like little angels. It was most, uh, awkward. It must have been so traumatic, in fact, that I really can't recall what happened next. I just remember that we were, once again, out on the road.

So, when Tellis mentioned driving to Tampa to record in a real, genuine recording studio, it seemed to recharge everyone's enthusiasm. Of course, the best thing about the trip, I suppose, was the fact that I finally got to work in a recording studio. When we arrived at the place I honestly didn't think much of it. It looked like a little shack beside a large house. However, when we went inside I was shocked. The place looked run down on the outside but inside it had new carpet and very high dollar recording gear.
　
The sound engineer named Paul worked with us very well and made sure we got the best recording for the money. Which, if I recall correctly, was zilch. However, the recording did turn out pretty decent. In fact, I still have that demo tape remastered on c.d. in my c.d. case. Sometimes, just for nostalgia's sake, I will pull it out and listen. I kept it unedited so I could hear all the outtakes as well, which, were many. And, that night, Paul was nice enough to let us spend the night on the studio floor so we wouldn't have to pay for a motel room.
Honestly, that's about all I can recall about that trip to Florida. I know we got up the next morning and hit the road again. This time, however, I do think we headed north because we had to get back in time for some of the guys to go back to work. Especially me.

Tellis, however, was ecstatic. All he would talk about was how people were going to love this new demo we recorded and that, pretty much, we were going to continue on in some kind of ministry. I honestly hoped he was right. I know that, when I got home, I kept listening to that demo over and over again. It was my first ever and I was quite proud of it. But, unfortunately, that was it.

The following Wednesday, when I showed up for practice, Tellis told me that Brian wasn't coming back and neither was Jerry. I guess they had had enough. The band Malachi, as almost as soon as it started, was gone forever. I learned a hard lesson about being in a band that summer. I also learned why and how they can form and be gone in a puff of smoke overnight. I guess that's why the music industry has contracts. However, despite the serious let down, I continued on and it wasn't long until I found yet another group to begin the cycle all over again. Fortunately, the next project lasted much longer, as well as the many which preceded it.