Ch-ch-ch-Changes

With apologies to David Bowie...

Well, With Intent has gone through a change, and this one appears to be final. Dan Stuart, who answered our ad for a drummer a few weeks ago, is now our lead guitarist. Dan is an accomplished guitarist who took up the drums a few years ago. He came in, and as I previously wrote, performed well enough to earn the job as With Intent's drummer.

However, Dan had a friend who also played the drums named Mark Schlaefli. Both Dan and Mark played in the band Freedom 51. Dan felt that if he could take over the lead guitarist spot and could also get Mark on board as the drummer, we'd have a great band.

Both Ed and I really liked Dan, so if Mark was anything like Dan then we knew that we had the potential to finally fill in the missing pieces to our puzzle. I have to admit I was personally concerned for Dan, as I know he wanted to play the drums. But Dan convinced me that his real love was just playing music, he wanted to play good music, and he felt this band had that potential if he switched to guitar and Mark agreed to come on board to play drums.

Dan talked to Mark, and he was interested. So we setup a jam and asked Mark to learn three songs, "Heroes" by David Bowie, "Hollywood Nights" by Bob Seger, and "Wonderwall" by Oasis. We started with "Heroes", and by the first few measures I knew this lineup was The One. I was shocked to learn that Mark had only been playing the drums for four years, it sure seemed like he was pretty seasoned.

When we finished the three tunes, Ed pulled out two demo CDs of our original music, handed one to Dan and the other to Mark. As he handed the CD to Mark he shook his hand and welcomed him into the band.

We continued on, just throwing our material at them. Remember, this was fairly new to Dan too as he was playing guitar now and not the drums, yet he was getting good ideas of how he could fit his guitar sound into our arrangements. I also spied him singing a few tunes too, we could definitely use the help on backups vocals. They liked playing our originals, which was great, and most importantly, these guys are a fit with us personality-wise. It's truly a pleasure to be in a band that has a cooperative spirit, and having a team effort is going to make us a strong band. Not only that, we sound pretty damn good.

So, With Intent is now:

Ed De Caro - Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Harmonica
Mike Lewis - Bass, Vocals
Dan Stuart - Lead Guitar, Vocals
Mark Schlaefli - Drums

Our immediate goal is to get ready for the July 10 gig at the Metaphor. We will be ready to play all three sets, I know it in my heart. By the time we reach our July 24 gig (also at the Metaphor) we will be in good shape I do believe. I am really excited for what the future holds for us, I know we are going to make some really good, kick-ass rock n' roll music. We all have been "around the block" so to speak, and though we are all in our 40's (well, not Mark but he's getting close) we have that young-at-heart spirit that allows us to rock on freely and fearlessly.

The funny thing about this band though, is that I find myself playing in a band with three really good drummers. A bass player's dream, right? Now if we could get a triple-drum-solo number in there, we'll be all set. Yeah baby!