Starting an 80s Band after 50

Now that I have passed the half century mark, I find myself paying more attention to the proverbial bucket list. My dad was a Bluegrass guitar/banjo picker who encouraged me to play at an early age. Here is a picture of us in the early 1980s.

[Circa 1981]

Two years later, I entered college and discovered culture shock. Although I was a business major, I took as many music classes as I could for electives, and got a small scholarship to play drums. In the music college, I discovered this area called "The Green Room" that had people very much different from me, but lots of fun nonetheless.

The party was on and it lasted for the rest of the decade!

I joined a new wave band called Future Image and had the time of my life! I will never forget the night my dad snuck up on us at a gig uptown and discovered we were all wearing makeup. LOL He knew it was part of the show, but I don't think he saw that coming. Also, I was growing a tiny pony tail, which was a trend back then, but he snipped it off while I was sleeping. Anyway.,..

Fast forward 33 years or so and here I am starting an 80s band. Technically I am the bass player, but have done the majority of vocals thusfar and have been focusing on that. We have two guitarist, but many tunes in our repertoire only require one; therefore, one of them can play bass on things I need to focus on the vocal. Actually, the youngest guitarist sings way better than me, but at this point he is not familiar with the tunes. Three bandmates were not born yet in the 80s!

I met the drummer, Floyd Durand, in my 2nd high school in senior year. At that time in the 80s, a movie called Porkys was popular where I discovered the art of "mooning". While still at Catholic school as a snare drummer in the marching band, I demonstrated my mooning skills on the 50 yard line to a rival school. This was not well received, but it made me famous before the new wave band did :) LOL

About three years ago, we started a band called the Liberators and we had a good run. It was the drummer and me, and two young guys on guitar and piano. We have been kicking around the idea of getting it back together, and when I explained that I wanted to do 80s music, they all thought it would be a fun change of pace as we were doing 60s and 70s.

Floyd runs an open mic night on Thursdays, and a guitarist, Sean Arriyaga, overheard our conversation and asked to participate. It was a welcomed addition because he pays a lot of attention to detail and has a nice practice room over his garage with all the gear set up.

The young piano player, Jason Percle, also had an original band with a fantastic drummer, Matt Keagan, who happens to be very good on vibraphone. (We do a side gig called "Jazz for Jesus", but I am not sure if we have an actual band name.) Eventually, Matt will be on vibes or mariba to cover extra keyboard parts and or do other percussions.

Here is a picture of The Liberators last year on April 21, 2018 at Gattuso's in Gretna, LA.

[Jason Percle-Keys, TJ Sutton-Guitar, Floyd Durand-Drums, and Nathan Gurley-Bass]

The new band is called The M80s NOLA and will also include Sean Arryaga on guitar/bass and Matt Keagan on vibraphone. There is already excitement built up and we are having so much fun! For me, it's like I entered a time machine!

Stay tuned,

NathanG