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Actually it was before that.

The foundation had been laid years prior from the basements and garages of Bloomfield and North Caldwell to the bedrooms and backyards of Montclair and the Jersey Shore converging on a Prep school in West Orange, New Jersey. Our school's motto was "Hazard Zet Forward" which roughly translates to --" Whatever things and stuff get all up in your grill--Keep going." So we did.

Then as things do happen the same crew of us wound up together again in a Brooklyn neighborhood some time later. Bands had come and gone. Rich Bonner along with Hatch McCarthy, Cousin Mike Roszhart and myself started a band called The Coliseum. We played mostly Brooklyn and East village shows with Brownies becoming a second home and an occasional jaunt to a tri-state college campus to open for the Lapse usually. Recording sessions took place in SIR studios in New York on stolen time in a room that lay between Paul Simon and either Julio or Enrique Iglesias practice sessions. Our engineer fell off the face of the earth and with him went some of the vital materials to finish the project. "...Hazard Zet Forward...Hazard Zet Forward...all up in our grill...All up in our grill...."

Time had flown and we found ourselves inbetween apartments eventually ending up in the Ironbound section of Newark New Jersey living in a 10,000 sq.ft. "loft" on the top floor of a recently "converted" factory. Newark is a long tall tale. Too much for now. But it essentially forged an integral piece of an identity that helped lead us to where we are at today. When you went to sleep it was to people playing music--when you awoke it was the same. 10,000 sq.ft with 18 ft ceilings of Bicycle jousts, "street" hockey and riffs and beats abound. Three bands living in the space with a song constantly being sung trying to find it's way. Ultimately getting us out of our own ways-- it was just what we did. Newark is where we began fleshing out the material for "Zero Hits" then Iceland smiled upon us with one of her many stolen treasures in Eva Johannesdottir ..boards and a core was founded. Hatch was south bound and Mike was in and out and in....

Back to Brooklyn.......

Many a friend worked hard at making this album and the live performances happen. There was a revolving door of musicians rolling thru our Fort Greene apartment ..The core of the band has always been myself ( Gary Keating ), Rich Bonner and Eva Johannesdottir with different drummers lending themselves to push the songs from where they were to where they could be. The live show going from Danny Leo to Pat Brennan to presently cousin Mike on drums...All of whom had a very heavy hand in the making of the album. The majority of "Zero Hits" was written and recorded in that Fort Greene apartment but would have never made it there without the Bedrock of the early sessions recorded by Chris and Danny Leo in their Bloomfield basement then onto Danny's Brooklyn studio "Wild Frontier". The importance of these sessions is immeasurable and the particular quality with which they were approached and executed possessing an intangible value that inspired us to see the project thru. Overall we were searching for a spirit and it was only until we stopped looking and just played that I'd like to think that it found us. It is difficult for me to speak about this album and all of the friends that made it a reality without feeling a sense of uncomfortable self importance.....Bullshitting. Steven Wright said it best as he always does when he said..." I was talking to myself the other day and though I was polite and cordial I could tell that I was lying."

As simply as it could possibly be put--we love doing what we do which is playing music for people. We are just trying to lend form to a feeling. Make a contribution. Get it out of us and our living rooms, cars and walkmen and into yours.......

So we started a band.... We are The Gang....You are the reason.

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