People often ask what our background is and how long we have been together etc. so we decided to put it all down here. Well at least as much as we can remember. There have been a few beers since then.
THE EARLY YEARS
Way back when, somewhere in the late 80's, our original bass player Forrest Martino hosted a Christmas party for some co-workers at his home. Somewhere during the course of the evening an impromptu karaoke session broke out with Forrest playing piano or guitar and people passing around a microphone. The lead singer for DNA, that's me, was in attendance. Having messed around for about two months in a VERY short-lived attempt at a band when I was 18, I took advantage of the chance to make a fool of myself and sang a tune or two. That's what drinking does to people. That was possibly the "spark" that ignited the DNA phenomenon. Right around this time drummer John Liuzzi and guitar player Tom Sparks meet and begin jamming occasionally. John and Forrest meet and arrange a jam session with Forrest on bass guitar. I was invited, but declined out of an absolute fear of being with real musicians and people that only knew me as "the long haired guy in the test lab". Yeah, hard to belive I was known for my long hair. Eventually, we did get together and explore the possibility of becoming an actual band. I never really imagined that we'd actually see the inside of a club or get any further than jamming in someone's home. After a few sessions together, an opportunity came up for us to actually jam at a party thrown by a co-worker of ours. We really were not ready. As awful as it sounds, I got an attack of stage fright and actually LEFT the party when it came time to play. I was scared to death to do that show and had to escape. Fast forward a few months and many practice sessions later, we added Doug Woellner to the line up to join Tom on guitar duty. We were moving along at a pretty good pace and played an annual April Birthday Bash party for a few years in a row under the name Tangent. We had some big personnel changes adding and removing guitar players, Pablo, Frank, and Doug. By 1996 Tangent dissolved completely and Tom and I started another project with drummer Sean McAslin and bass player Jeff Samstad. A 1997 fundraiser at Matzke Park inspired Forrest to collaborate with keyboardist Perry Jarrell and guitar player Buck Wheat to form a band for the event. Perry and Buck had been playing together in a country band for the previous few years and both were involved in various other projects. The Matzke Park project was a 6 piece effort which included a saxophone player and Tom Sparks on guitar with John Liuzzi on drums. Vocals were covered by others in the band due to my inability to attend. Shortly after that was a three song open-mike-night gig at the now defunct Centerfields. Perry on keyboards added a whole new dimension to the music, as did Buck on guitar, and to top it off, BOTH can sing!! There was a definite chemistry and we all knew we had to become a real band.
MAKING MONEY or...What's in a name?
1998 and we're an official band. The DNA band. Our first paying gig was at a no longer existing club called Acadia on FM 1960. We really had a blast and made some great new friends with local band Greekfire as a result of that gig. We still have the picture of us holding our first check. Yep, it was the big time. DNA was officially a band and a working band at that. So, what does DNA stand for and how did we get the name? Who knows? It is a bit unclear how the name came about and even less clear what it means. We are still taking suggestions for the meaning, but so far we're sticking with National Dyslexic Association (get it?). We continued playing all over West Houston. Most of those places are just a memory now but they included The Crooked Ferret, The Bait House, Renegades, Acadia, The Thirsty Turtle and Jeff's Sports Bar. And some that still exist such as Coaches, Rookies, OzBar, Forgettaboudits, Einstein's, The Abbey Pub, Sports N More, 510 Bar, Mr B's, and several others.
THE BIG TIME ??
We were invited to play the Party on the Park between Minute Maid Field (then known as Enron) and the George R. Brown Convention Center. The event was hosted by 93.7FM The Arrow and we entertained crowds going to and from the game. It was a blast and the biggest part of our 15 minutes of fame. We reached a point where we were being booked for an entire year by February or March, in most cases, and have been forced to turn down gigs. We had a personnel change a couple years back when bass palyer and original member, Forrest Martino, went on to new musical projects. He was replaced with Mitchell Bergen who was pulling double duty with his own band Trick Dog. Our original drummer relocated to San Antonio and allowed us to pick up ex-Soul Junkies drummer Jon Anson. Scheduling issues prompted us to add bassist Dave Westerman of Tailspin to fill in for Mitch when the scheduling got tight. These two brought new life to the band. DNA for 2006 has brought Mitch back in to the lineup because of Dave's unfortunate health issues. Get well soon Dave! And welcome home Mitch. 2007 looks really good for the band and our current line up. We have been invited to play the Houston Rodeo Cook Off for 2007 and hear that the crowd will reach the thousand mark easily. We look forward to it and look forward to creating more DNA history. We hope you will come and see us often and want our long time and new fans to know how greatly appreciated they are. Keep us going and we'll keep going for YOU.
