Rocko and the Devils is a rock and roll band. It is a group of five
musicians of various levels of talent and diverse musical influence
dedicated to the idea that musical performance is the greatest thing
in the universe. So much so, that each of the members, in one form
or another, has dedicated their entire life to music. Work hard to
play hard is more than a concept for these guys. It is the basis of
their careers. You see this band is mostly comprised of professional
road crew. That’s right – “roadies” if you will, but not the
stereotypical bleary-eyed-hungover-sweaty-asleep-at-the-Tshirt-stand
roadie you might bump into at the local bar. These guys are the best
of the best at what they do, known throughout the world for their
expertise in musical production. Collectively, they have over 150
years of experience both performing and producing rock and roll
shows.
Generally speaking, road crew are quite shy about playing in front
of people. As we have all seen at pretty much any rock show since
Elvis first grabbed a microphone stand and shook his hips, crew guys
never play a song when they are checking the equipment before the
“Headliner” show begins. It’s always “…check……one, two……check”
through a mic, or loud “KA-CHANG, meedelee, meedlelee, meedelee,
meeee, KA-CHANG” on guitar, with a lot of boring single hits on
drums to check the gear out before a show. Audience members have
become so used to it that it has become a natural part of going to a
rock show. The roadies are ignored as they go about their business
making sure everything is right for the performance. No big deal.
Rocko is one of the most experienced of all the road crew people in
the world. He has been around. If you don’t know, or at least have
heard of Rocko, you are pretty much new to the music business. He
has played in rock bands since 1966. That’s right - 40 years ago!
Rocko first started working professionally with major player “rock
stars” In 1974 - when he would buy-repair-sell guitars to some of
the biggest names in show biz at that time. Zeppelin, Bad Company,
Kansas, Genesis,
Humble Pie, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck…. The list is long and the
clients are well respected. Rocko was the go-to guy for cool vintage
guitars.
Then Rocko went on to touring work for some of the biggest and most
successful artists of our time. Styx, Muddy Waters, Robin Trower,
Survivor, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Mellencamp, J. Geils Band, KISS, The
Scorpions, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson,and of course U2, just to
name a few. Thirty-two years of touring setting up over 6,000 shows
…and still counting.
Then in 1999 Rocko first worked with
Journey. This would be the
start of a close relationship with fellow Journey Crew members
Scott
Appleton, Jim Handley, Jeff Hannah and
Brent Jeffers. As the Journey
tour progressed, Rocko noticed that the crew members were actually
quite talented musicians as well. One day Rocko came up on stage
while the crew was line checking and grabbed a guitar and declared –
“OK guys, I wanna jam! Let’s play a song!”. The crew guys were
extremely talented and experienced musicians for the most part,
except for Jeff “Jeffro” Hannah, who was the bass tech. He was not
really a bass player, but he had an excellent sense of timing. Jeffro was willing to try playing if someone showed him what to do.
So after a quick review of how the song went they all played “Rocky
Mountain Way” by Joe Walsh. It sounded pretty good, so they worked
out a few more songs, then a few more, until they finally had a
small set together. They would play this each day before the band
came in for sound check. It was very helpful to the sound guys so
they could dial things in, and it was a lot of fun for the crew to
play really loud in a big venue.
One day during the 2002 “Under the Radar” tour, Journey was playing
in Hawaii; two shows in Baisdell Arena in Honolulu. Journey put on a
spectacular show on the first night, but the band members were
asking why the arena was only half full for the first three songs,
as both nights were sold out. It seems that, in Hawaii anyway, when
there is no support act most of the audience is outside the venue
partying until the show starts, then everyone grabs a drink and
scrambles inside but doesn’t get to their seat until about the third
song. Journey asked Rocko to do something about it, so Rocko’s
solution was to get an opening act for the next night. That opening
act would be the road crew.
The show started at the scheduled time on the second night, but
instead of the standard first song of the Journey set, the audience
was greeted by a short set of Classic Rock hits performed by the
road crew band. The crowd loved it, Journey had everyone in their
seats when they started their show, everyone seemed to enjoy
themselves, it was a total win-win situation. It went so well that
the crew band also opened the show a couple of nights later in Maui
as well!
Over the next year, the Journey Crew Band would open the show for
Journey on many of the tour dates in several cities. There was no
formal name for the band… at least not any that you can print here.
Some of the more tame names were “Jeffro and the Mooncrickets”, and
“10 Second Line Check”. The crew even began to get a small
underground following among Journey fans. The last show that the
crew band would open for Journey was again in Hawaii in 2004. Rocko
went back to work for U2, but stayed in touch with his Journey crew
band mates.
Word spread in the industry about this anomaly. ”Roadies don’t play”
was most people's attitude, but many minds were changed after people
heard this band with no real name. Here is one of many reviews, this
one from a concert reviewer for a newspaper in Rapid City, South
Dakota:
I've been to hundreds of concerts during the past 20 years and I've
seen a wide variety of opening acts. Comedians, unknown bands, local
bands, up and coming bands, acoustic sets, just about everything you
could imagine. But until this concert, I had never seen a band's
roadies open the show. That's what happened before the Journey
concert in Rapid City, South Dakota. Members of Journey's road crew
were the opening act, playing about 25 minutes of cover songs. The
funny thing is they were better and more entertaining than many of
the "real bands" I've seen open concerts. I wonder if they get paid
extra the nights they open for the band.
Brent Jeffers, keyboardist for the crew band, is also a very
talented videographer in his own right. Brent took several hours of
video of various performances of the crew band and whittled it into
a very professional looking DVD of the many shows they had played.
It was just something for the crew to relive their moment of past
glory. Rocko took a copy with him on the U2 tour and passed it to
U2’s manager Paul McGuinness, telling him “… if you ever need a good
opening act for U2, give us a call. A few days later, 30 seconds
before the start of the U2 show in Los Angeles, Bono walked up to Rocko and said “Me and the boys would like to know if your band
would open for us on the last show of the tour”. Rocko said “No
problem!”. The last shows would be in Hawaii at Aloha Stadium!!!
Rocko called back his Journey crew mates and gave them the news. You
could have knocked them over with a feather as the reality of the
news sunk in. They agreed to get together to rehearse as soon as
they each finished their respective tours. So between Christmas and
New Years Day of 2005, they all met at Rocko’s house to rehearse for
the big gig. Scott on lead guitar,
Jim on drums, Brent on keyboards,
and Rocko on guitar and lead vocals. Jeffro, by his own admission
was not really ready for a gig like this, so Rocko called his old
friend Larry O’Connor, a guy that Rocko had played with for over
thirty years, to play bass. Everyone agreed that we couldn’t do it
without Jeffro there, so Jeffro became the “crew” for the project.
Although Larry had never been a road crew member, his musical
ability and sense of humor fit right in with the rest of the guys,
including Jeffro, so with that, the Devils were complete.
Rocko had developed quite a name amongst U2 fans - as he
would frequently get up and act as emcee for many of the shows and
video shoots to let the crowd know what was going on. Rocko has
never suffered from stage fright and would get up and speak to the
crowd like they were old friends, with the comedic timing of a “rock
and roll Billy Crystal”. At first it was suggested that the band
just be called “Rocko”. But Rocko wasn’t comfortable about leaving
his band out of the title. So it was decided that the band would be
called "Rocko and the Devils”. It seems Rocko has this delusion that
he is really Satan, and if you ever saw him on a load out you might
think he really is Satan. So it seemed appropriate to call the band
the Devils. So “Rocko and the Devils” is born!
Rocko and the Devils performed as special guest for U2 & Pearl
Jam on December 9th 2006 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.
