Bob Monroe
Earliest influences included The BeeGee’s (I was 5 years old alright), Little River Band, Bay City Rollers, Kiss, Queen, early Quiet Riot (1983), Axe, Scorpions, Crue, Def Leppard.
He first dressed as Gene Simmons for Halloween at the age of 7. His favorite record by age 9 was the double album KISS ALIVE II, favorite song; timeless classic, God of Thunder. He wore that !@#$er out. He dabbled in the music business for a few years at age 10 by recording every single one of Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdowns on Saturday morning and created hundreds of perfectly engineered mix tapes on the family Hi-Fi system. At 11, he had the most amazing hair in the tri-state area and he knew it. (Insert 5th grade photo here). Slick was an appropriate nickname. Bob was all about the music and absolutely destined to be a highly sought after west coast producer. That all changed in 1983.
Bob came across Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” and he was hooked on that freaking cowbell and snare. Suddenly he was spontaneously “air drumming” and looking like a cracked out chimpanzee. Before long, air was not enough to hold the fury inside. Soon he had pencils, then wooden spoons, hitting everything in sight. His first live performance was later that same year when he assembled a full band of young metal heads and performed an air cover of the Scorpions “Rock You Like A Hurricane” for the entire student body of Jennie P. Stewart Elementary School. After smashing the cardboard and tin foil drums on stage, Bob’s performance was deemed “inappropriate” by faculty. (But the kids deemed him the coolest !@#$%%er in the school!!). The rest is history.
