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Honoring the Magic of Nick: The Verve Pipe Return to Saginaw November 5th
By Robert E. Martin
In
the wake of his passing, The Nick Andros Music Scholarship Fund was
formed with the goal of sponsoring, through scholarship grants, a young new
artist each year, drawn from within the community, and selected on the basis of
strong character and the need to work in a creative sense. To
date nearly $30,000 has been raised for the Scholarship Fund and on
Friday, November 5th,
a very special event is being planned at Saginaw's Temple Theatre that
will feature some of the strongest and most talented rock acts in the
Mid-Michigan area, with all proceeds dedicated to the Scholarship Fund.
Headlining this exceptional evening will be none other than The Verve Pipe
- the Lansing based group that rose to the top of the charts and international
acclaim back in 1996 with such memorable songs as The Freshman, Villains,
and Photograph. Also
on the bill are special guests 19 Wheels, a Lansing-based group with
strong & innovative material that is best exemplified on their groundbreaking
release Sugareen and taken further with their latest release,
Jawbreaker.
Rounding out this special evening will be Tri-City favorites Jedi Mind Trip
with a stellar personnel line-up that recently added keyboardist/vocalist
Noel Howland into the mix along with former Haskel Andy Reed. On
the eve of this major event, I sat down with former Saginawian Donny Brown,
a close friend of Nick's and one of the driving forces behind The Verve Pipe,
to talk about the scholarship fund, the upcoming scholarship concert, and new
creative directions The Verve Pipe has been moving towards over the past
few years since the release of their last RCA CD, Underneath. In
terms of Verve Pipe activity, Donny is very positive & upbeat. "We're
doing two new songs at the concert that are still in the process of being
written," he explains. "One is entitled Keep a Little Bit Inside and is
based indirectly around my relationship with Nick, and the other is a song Brian
wrote called The Place Where I Belong."
"Actually, we are writing together more now than in the past. Brian (VanderArk)
is off the road for a bit and has mainly been doing a solo gig opening for
touring bands on the road. "It's
different working now on new material because the band is scattered and not all
living in the same state, so basically we demo the new material between Brian
and myself and then present it to the other members."
Recalling Brian's foray into acting with the film Rock Star (which
starred Jennifer Aniston and Mark Wahlberg) I'm curious as to
whether Brian is still acting. "It's funny you should ask," notes Donny. "He just called yesterday and made it to the finals of The Ten Commandments which is a new theatrical production being staged in Los Angeles. Brian was up for the lead role and made it to the finals with one of the actors in Rent. But then Val Kilmer threw his hat into the ring and wound up with the role, so Brian is going to spend his winter in Michigan, staying here in Lansing. He's engaged now to a wonderful girl - a very talented songwriter & musician - so we've been throwing ideas back and forth and collaborating a bit more."
"One
of the new songs we'll be performing in Saginaw is written about Nick being
gone," continues Donny. "It's called Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow and is
about how love doesn't go away. Even though people go away, the love you felt
for them endures and hopefully the thought carries on. It's funny because the
song has yet to be completely written yet and here I am talking about it, but
the chorus lyrics have been written and the basic structure is there." With
original bassist Brad VanderArk and guitarist A.J. Dunning now out
of the V.P fold, new members of the band consist of Lansing guitarist Don
Matheny (formerly of Bop-Harvey) and bassist Joel Ferguson
(formerly the lead singer of Papa Vegas, a band that was also signed to
RCA). "Don
is a distinct guitarist with a unique sound," reflects Donny. "A.J. was distinct
as well and you can never really replace a member of that caliber, but Don's
sound is different and he definitely adds to the group."
Nick Andros
always enjoyed a special relationship with The Verve Pipe. Apart from
respecting the band and all they achieved, he became close & fast friends with
Donny. What can Donny impart about Nick's relationship with the V.P? "Nick
was just this great guy that really brought me out of my shell in a lot of
ways," he reflects. "I remember when he came to Chicago and we were making our
last album, Underneath, and he stayed with me and brought some rough
tracks from his album Absent, and I was really struck with his talent. I
wanted to help out but was still signed to RCA so got credited on the album by
the name of one of my favorite Monty Python characters." "I
also vividly recall when we were playing Indianapolis for this Millennium Party
at the end of 1999 to welcome in 2000, and Nick came to town. It was an outdoor
show with about 20,000 people and afterwards we proceeded to raise hell in the
hotel room. I remember at the end of the night we were playing guitars for each
other and singing songs, but were in no condition to do that. Still, Nick wanted
to impress us with his material, even though we wouldn't know the difference. At
one point he was trying to make this chord but couldn't get it, so took his
other hand and positioned his fingers just right on the fret board to make the
chord shift, and we all laughed hysterically. Mainly, I think Nick just liked
to sing and play guitar and Brian's voice really appealed to him." In
addition to the benefit & production duties, Donny is also embarking upon an
intriguing side-project with former Haskel guitarist Andy Reed entitled
McCaw. "What it consists of is all original material that I've written
with Andy that is influenced strongly by the work of Paul McCartney."
Indeed, in listening to some raw demos of the project, the musicianship is
strongly McCartneyesque, drawing upon a flourish from Helen Wheels here
and a smidgen of Honey Pie there, and in essence a very bold and
potentially successful experiment. After
the Temple concert, are there any other projects in store for the Scholarship
Fund? "Well,
there's talk about another CD and we are also planning another night at The
Hamilton St. Pub after the holidays," notes Donny. "Some people have been
fantastic in terms of our fund raising endeavors that deserve mention,
especially The Turner Family "The
process for the next scholarship to be awarded will come in the late Winter &
Spring. March 1st
is the deadline for applicants. It's open to any high school student of strong
character and conviction. They don't need to play music, but simply work in a
creative sense. It's open to musicians, engineers, poets, and creative writers,
anybody with a dream. The Committee is looking for interesting people with a
positive life force in them, so it pays appropriate tribute to Nick," concludes
Donny. Doors for the Nick Andros Music Scholarship Benefit Concert open at 6:00 PM with free parking & shuttle from the Saginaw Tower. Tickets are $15.00 each and available at TBF Graphics, Temple Theatre, The Hamilton St. Pub, Woody O'Briens, J.B. Meinberg, 3 Star Hockey, Herter Music Center (Saginaw & Bay City), Red Eye Coffee House, Mid Michigan Music (Saginaw, Bay City, Midland) and RIT Drum & Guitar.
For
more information on The Nick Andros Scholarship Fund check out the
website at www.nickandros.com
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