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---------------------HISTORY OF MELLOW DRUNK-----------------
Leigh Gregory formed Mellow Drunk in late 1999 as a recording project that grew out of Leigh's many years of recording songs in a bedroom on a 4-track. Leigh enlisted friends Grant Miller, Missy Roback and Rick Wilson in San Francisco and friends Jeff Crandall, Aaron Kerr and Patrick Hennessey (who were all members of the band Thinland) in Minneapolis to complete the project. Leigh played most of the guitars and keys himself, recorded much of the CD at home on a recently acquired ADAT (four additonal tracks!!), and then mixed everything at the now defunct Black Eyed Pig Studios in San Francisco. "Always Be Drunk" was well received and reviewed and gathered a respectable amount of international distribution.
With the modest success of "Always Be Drunk" Leigh began looking for San Francisco musicians to form a real, working band under the Mellow Drunk name. During this period of time Leigh was playing a one-off with Marty Willson-Piper and Steven Roback (of Church/Rain Parade fame respectively) at the Noe Valley Ministry and Ricky Rene Maymi (Small Stone/BJM) happened to be in attendance. Leigh and Ricky hit it off and Ricky was presented with a copy of "Always Be Drunk." In the meantime Leigh was also hooking up and rehearsing with drummer Sean DeGaetano (Dora Flood) who knew guitarist/bassist Daniel Dietrick who was also presented with a copy of "Always Be Drunk." Hammond player Stephen Cavoretto (also in Dora Flood) also expressed an immediate interest in joining the band so rehearsals commenced as a four piece down at San Francisco's notorious Turk Street Studios. As luck would have it Ricky Maymi really liked what he heard and it just happened that smallstone (Rick's LA-based band at the time) had just called it a day. Ricky easily stepped into to the fold on 12-string lead/rhythm guitar. Now an official five piece band the group quickly started to perform all the songs from "Always Be Drunk," as well as a batch of new tunes Leigh had already written which eventually became the basis for the band's second release "Never Sleep at Night."
To fill in the gap between releases the band put out the "Everybody Knows You're A Star" EP, which was comprised of material already recorded by Leigh during the "Always Be Drunk" sessions. This allowed the band some time while recording the follow-up full-length "Never Sleep at Night." An ambitious project, "NSAN" features many of the band's signature songs, beginning with the ringing guitars on should have been singles "Never Sleep at Night," "The Top," and "There for You," to the sublime "Shone on Everyone" and "Dead Sea Fruit," on to the psych guitar freak-out "A Different Color on My Door" and finishing with the hypnotic final cut "Mellow Drunk." Impressed with the band the CD was released in the UK by Ochre Records in October 2003. By this point Mellow Drunk was already supporting international acts such as Supergrass, Luna, Gorky's Zygotic Minci, the Church and the Trashcan Sinatras just to name a few. The band followed the CD up with the "Different Color On My Door" EP, a catchy five song release with a single version of the title song. Not one to slow down between releases, Leigh also released his first "official" solo, mainly acoustic CD "Rest Your Weary Head" during the same period of time.
By 2005 the band was again inspired to record and Mellow Drunk began tracking what would become their last full-length release to date "One Thousand Lights." Patrick Harte of Rosemarys fame took over for Sean behind the drum kit and an advance EP entitled "Low Life" was put to promote the full-length which was ready to be mastered and released again by Ochre Records; however, fate can be fickle and just as the CD was being mastered Ochre Records decided to call it a day leaving the release without a label. Adding to complications Leigh was diagnosed with a spinal tumor in March 2006 and spent the next three months in intensive rehab. Luckily, two years later, he is back on his feet, writing, singing and playing guitar daily.
After a long time One Thousand Lights was finally put out in 2008 by cool German Label Vollwert-Records!!!
Mellow Drunk still continue to play around San Francisco, though usually in a more laid back acoustic setting. The band supported the Clientele at the Great American Music Hall in May 2007 and there is always a chance that there will be shows sometime in the near future.
In the summer of 2007 Leigh released his second solo CD entitled "Rainy Season Never Ends," a starkly beautiful and enchanting folk release. Steve is still playing the Hammond and singing and Sean is back behind the drums in a new project Leigh has called Memory's Mystic Band. Ricky is still a full-time touring member of the BJM. In addition he has toured with the Black Ryder and participated in the recent four-day Triffids reunion in Sydney, Australia. Leigh, Ricky and Stephen recently (April 2008) played an acoustic Mellow Drunk set at the Plough & the Stars Pub in San Francisco. Daniel and Patrick have both contributed to Leigh's long awaited concept CD "1973" which will hopefully see the light of day at the end of summer 2008.
- May 2008
--------------------------LINKS-------------------------------
MELLOW DRUNK RELEASES @ iTunes
Leigh Gregory Music.com Download Lyrics and keep up with Leigh
Leigh Gregory's Myspace Page
Rick Maymi's Mellow Drunk Myspace Page
www.MellowDrunk.com
Ochre Records
Green Fuse Records
Heyday Mail Order Europe
Links To Great Bands
