SATIN BLACK
Matt's first
band in his sophmore year of high school was "Satin Black", consisting of Darin Gilbert, Matt James, Chad Zinda, and Eric
Rein. This was a good old rock-n-roll band playing originals that they wrote, as well as doing covers from the Who,
The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Cream and others.
FURY
Matt then
moved to Austin, Texas in his junior year of high school. He quickly co-formed a hard rock band called "Fury".
This band, consisting of Matt James, Mike Fuger, Kelly Robinson, Chris Litz, & Danny and Steve Schneider, was
a cover/glam band back in the mid-eighties, and played at a few parties or teen clubs, and also played at the Westwood High School talent contest, which was the band's first live performance. After
a year or so of playing different gigs, the band tried to reform with various other players, but most went their
own directions.
E.T.A
After that, Matt
co-formed another hard rock act called E.T.A., with former Fury guitarist, Mike Fuger, and former Fury lead
singer, Steve Schneider. This line up was joined by bassist Ron Kinnard, and a guitarist named Danny Aaron, later
to be known as the guitarist from Dangerous Toys. E.T.A started playing clubs around Austin and theaters as well.
They had a pretty good sized following. Regular visits by band friend Jason McMasters (Watchtower, Dangerous Toys),
turned into extended jam sessions. The band continued for a year or two, only later to brake up when
Danny was asked to join Dangerous Toys.
MAXX FACTOR
Matt
eventually joined another original/cover/glam band appropriately called, "Maxx Factor". This band, consisting of
Leigh Cates, Greg Brin, Terry Smith, and Matt James, had a couple of songs on Z-Rock in San Antonio and Austin, most notably
with their hit "Marcy", which was regularly requested on the radio by listeners. They recorded a demo CD at Studio D
in Austin, opened for some national acts, toured the South and Southwest from West Texas to Mississippi,
and were also very well known in Austin.
ONYXX
Next came "Onyxx",
an all original band fronted by Teri Timms, one of the most popular female singers from Austin at that time. This
band had Matt James, Terri Timms (Onyxx), Greg Brin, and Paul (St. James) Betts in the line-up. Matt was drafted into
Onyxx by Maxx Factor guitarist, Greg Brin, who joined Onyxx shortly before Matt. Onyxx soon found themselves immersed
into big popularity with the Austin music scene and packed every place that they played. They once again recorded a
demo CD at Studio D in Austin. They played the South By Southwest Music Festival (SXSW) in the 90's and
played at the Austin City Colisseum to a crowd of approximately 2,500 people, with bands on two stages from all over the world.
The band unfortunately broke up after two or so years.
LEIGH CATES BAND
After a
little time, Matt had another band to fill his time, keep up his drum licks, and was drafted into "The Leigh Cates
Band", once again, by former Maxx Factor/Onyxx guitarist Greg Brin. This band consisting of Leigh Cates, Greg Brin,
and Matt James, had a small record label deal through V&R Records out of Chicago and Kansas. They wrote original
songs, recorded a demo CD, and toured the South and Southwest U.S., playing out on tour for about a year on various sporatic
dates. Tension grew high in the band between various members. After a year or two they disbanded and
Matt moved to Wisconsin in 1994.
R-N-B BAKERY
In Wisconsin
he joined a bluesy/rock cover band by the name of "R-N-B Bakery" who played songs from Neil Young to Steppenwolf, to Bob Dylan
to Big Head Todd & the Monsters. They were quite popular around the Minoqua/Woodruff area in Northern Wisconsin.
RAINMAKER
After 3 years
or so, Matt moved to Minneapolis. There he joined the band "Rainmaker," which consisted of Mark Ross, Johnee D'Shea,
Christopher Tai, and Matt James. They recorded a CD at Pachyderm Studios in the summer of 1996, the same studio that
Nirvana, Soul Asylum and Live recorded at. They went on a tour of the North U.S. and Midwest from North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin,
and even Iowa in support of their newly released, full length CD entitled "Walk on Water" which was sold in most Best
Buy Stores, as well as nationwide and even some world wide locations. The band was also included to have one song
on the Perris Promotions CD #4, in which Rainmaker and 12 other bands had one song a piece. This disk was distributed
worldwide including Japan, Sweden, Britain, and Australia. A year or so after, Matt and bassist Johnee D' Shea decided
to leave the band to pursue other writing and performing avenues.
DECADE
After a year
of collaborating with Johnee D'Shea, Matt received a call from Drew Hayes, a keyboardist in a local cover band called
"Decade" in the fall of 1997. This already well known cover act consisted of Rick Stanko, Daniel James, Matt
James, Tedd Bullock, Linda Jarva, Alexi McFadden, and Drew Hayes. They played mainly around the Twin Cities area playing
cover tunes from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, and also opened for some national acts. Almost a year or more later,
a musical indifference came amongst the members, and Matt decided these particular covers weren't the avenue to take, and parted
the band, to once again, pursue original material and other avenues.
MARK ROSS AND THE RHYTHM JUNKIES
This band mainly
dealt, as well, with cover tunes, however Mark Ross, and Matt James have had a long past relationship with original material
and decided to give it a try once again. The band, consisted of Mark Ross, Matt James, Brodie Ryan, and Kevin Winstead,
and wrote and played pop rock/alternative music around Minneapolis/St. Paul and Western Minnesota. However, after
many shows were played around Minnesota, Matt once again was not happy with the music style of pop rock in process
and decided to pursue a new harder edge direction.
SOULCAGE
Around
1998, Matt then formed "SoulCage" with former bassist/collaborator, Johnee D'Shea. After a long struggle to find
musicians, and some time later, they recruited Decade players, guitarist Daniel James, and keyboardist Drew Hayes, along with
1/2 Mile Down lead vocalist Doug Banks. Johnee was then replaced by The Load Kings bassist, D.T. Harris.
From there, this band played cover tunes to get out on the circuit and played for almost two years.
SoulCage then
got lucky and was recruited to play a Red Cross Benefit with Night Ranger drummer/singer Kelly Keagy. It was held at
Bogart's Place in October of 2001 and they were joined by one of Matt's personal friends, and ex-Toto lead singer, Fergie
Frederiksen, and Dare Force guitarist Brian Bart. The benefit raised just over $10,000 for the NYC Twin Towers disaster fund.
After all that, the
original material was still not evolving, frustration was high, keyboardist Drew Hayes quit the band due to musical discrepancies,
and shortly after, Matt left the band as well to pursue his love of hard rock original music. SoulCage went
on for a short time, only later to disband.
DOWNSIDE OF TRUTH
Which brings
us to D.O.T (Downside of Truth). This band was formed by Matt James and "Pulse 8" guitarist, Chad Betsinger, who
together realized the collective dream that they had been searching for. They recruited Chris South, an exceptional
singer/songwriter from the St. Louis band "Rags", and recently found bassist Robert Jeske, from the Minneapolis
band "Elixir".
The band wrote
18 songs in a very short time, and rehearsed diligently. They chose 4 of the songs to compile onto a demo CD entitled,
"Bleeding 101" which was released in January of 2004. The D.O.T $10 sack, as it was known, included the demo
CD, a D.O.T t-shirt and sticker, and was sold at all their shows. The band opened for major acts such as DOPE, 40 Below
Summer, & Soil, to name a few, and they played the Minneapolis Mayhem Festival in April of 2004 in the midst of Morbid
Angel, Suffocation, Satyricon, Heathen, Avenger of Blood, Fleshgrind, and local bands such as R-Evolution and various other
artists.
However, as most
bands have, problems arose, and unfortunately Chad Betsinger was replaced by "Rigg" guitarist Chris Winter in July of 2004.
The band is steadily writing new songs to add to their current list.
In May of 2005, Lead vocalist Chris
South left the band. Auditions were held and 4 months later the band recruited Behn Zarecky, a local singer from the
Twin Cities.
Altogether the
band, in all three incarnations, have written 24 songs so far. The band was also playing
shows in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and Western Wisconsin to an ever growing, dedicated fan base. The
band made quite a stir around the Twin Cities area and were being recognized by various bands and record companies to
be a very dominating force. They appeared in local magazines, radio shows, and even a TV spotlites show on the "Minnesota
Music" program. Sadly after only a couple of months with the new lead singer, the band broke up due to lack of
interest and all members went their own ways. Most members can now be seen in various other acts around the Twin Cities.
NATIONAL OVERDRIVE
This five piece hard rock band is
one of Matt's latest chapters of his ever growing music career formed back in 2007 by bassist Michael Alan and Matt James.
The two started writing songs together, and collaborated on most of the songs for the CD, except for "Determination" which
both music and lyrics were written solely by Matt James. Soon after, they quickly found original guitarist Greg Boesel.
As a trio, they wrote numerous songs that are still being played in their current line-up.
Soon after they auditioned guitarists and Jeff Geslin was recruited as
a second guitarist. Greg Boesel decided to leave the band shortly after and Jeff Geslin was promoted to lead guitar. Vocalist
Robert Powers joined the line-up in 2009 followed by secondary guitarist Erik Foote. They opened for a few national
artists most notably, George Lynch's (Ex-Dokken) Lynch Mob.
After a period of 2 years or so vocalist Robert Powers and guitarist Erik Foote left the band. Another guitarist
Tommy Harwick and vocalist Sean Steele joined the group and the band continued to play live shows in support of their CD.
However, the chemistry of the band was drastically changed and a short time later Matt James left the group to pursue solo
activities. The band then hired Kyle Bedbury on drums and they are currently playing shows around the Twin Cities.
SUCKA PUNCH
This band was established back in 2001 by Lead Vocalist Josh "Schwa" Siegel from the band "UFA" and
guitarist Mattytime from the Minneapolis bands "Killer in the Workplace", "UFA", and National Recording Artists "Primer 55".
Bass player Joel Seidlitz from the bands "Travesty" and "Bitter" joined forces with them and they began writing material for
a CD.
After a few shows with various Minneapolis drummers,
guitarist Mattytime gave drummer Matt James a call asking if he would be interested in joining the group for upcoming shows
and possible writing probabilities. With little hesitation Matt joined the band and they began their adventure. The band played
a few road shows including "Shanestock" in Spooner Wisconsin and "Midwest Music Festival" in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The band
then got a major gig opening for "Sevendust" at one of the most prestigious clubs in Minneapolis called "The Myth Nightclub",
where many major acts play.
But sad to say, the band was short lived and
never played a show after that. Schwa and Mattytime went on tour with "Primer 55" and Joel and Matt were left to part ways.
