Background - How It All Started...

Dave: To the best of my memory, I remember meeting Mark in a psychology 101 class in college and we found that we had a common interest in playing music (truth be told...it was a great diversion for not having to pay attention to the lecturer!). We exchanged stories of bands we had been in and found a lot of similarities in the type of music we were listening to, music we were playing, and artists that we were following. In addition, we were both toying with the idea of joining a fraternity on campus - a way of meeting more people (especially women at fraternity parties!). We met Ken at one of the fraternity mixers and struck up a conversation about music. Ken's background in music was similar to ours. We decided to jam together one night, and the rest was history. I was initially intimidated by these guys - amazing talent and totally blown away by their incredible voices - especially their ability to harmonize on the spot! I thought I had died and had gone to heaven!

Ken: We met early after starting college at Loyola. And I think Dave is right that it happened at a fraternity party. It was such a blessing and it seemed like fate brought us together. When we first started playing and harmonizing together, we knew we had found something special and when Mark introduced us to Tim, we became a band. Our musical adventure played a huge role in defining my college experience.

Tim: I met Mark through a mutual friend/guitar player extraordinaire, Brad Becnel. Brad and Mark were in a band together and invited me to come play with them (I think Mark was anxious to find a guitar player who could sing). We formed a band and courtesy of Brad named it "Masty". Like most bands at that time, we played all covers; Beatles, Neil Young, Byrds, Spirit and the like. Lots of $100 gigs! Alas, Mark, the oldest of us moved away to college and Brad and I joined a couple different bands. While at Loyola, Mark met Dave and Ken, both great guitar players and singers, but they lacked a drummer. Mark knew I played and from our first rehearsal at Dave's house in Santa Ana, I knew this was going to be something special.

How did you guys come up with the name "Montana"?

Mark: I can't remember who came up with the name, but we wanted something that reflected our country-rock and folk-rock tendencies. For some reason, a lot of bands in the 60's and 70's were naming themselves after places (e.g., Buffalo-Springfield, Boston, Chicago, Kansas, etc.). So, we probably thought that naming ourselves after a wide-open, cowboy place like Montana was pretty cool. I'm not sure if any of us has even been to Montana.

Tim: Like Mark, I don't remember who actually coined it, but it had that Western feel we were looking for.

Which artists influenced you the most?

Dave: There were so many...but at the time when we first got together, it was The Eagles, Jackson Browne, The Stone Poneys (Linda Rondstadt), The Doobie Brothers, The Allman Brothers, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Byrds, Loggins and Messina, The Buffalo Springfield, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, James Taylor...

Mark: Poco, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and Jackson Browne for their harmonies and tasteful guitar playing. After them, I'd say the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band. Then, of course, there was James Taylor whose songs and lyrics still have an almost spiritual effect on me.

Ken: When I was ten, my older cousin Frankie let me play his new electric guitar - I figured out “Wipe Out” by the Surfaris, and sat there for an hour playing it over and over again. I was hooked. By the time I met my future Montana band mates, my biggest influence was James Taylor, but there were many others including the Beatles; Cat Stevens; Eric Clapton and The Allman Brother’s Dickey Betts for lead guitar; as well as the Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Loggins and Messina, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young for their rich harmonies.

Tim: My early favorites were of course the Beatles. Their music, particularly their harmonies were like nothing else I had ever heard. As time went on, The Byrds, The Animals, Cream and Creedence were regularly on my record player. As I became a more active guitarist, bands like Poco, Buffalo Springfield, CSN, The Doobies Brothers, Allman Brothers, Loggins and Messina and The Eagles were big influences.

What is your favorite memory? Was there a particular gig that you remember the most out of all the gigs you performed?

Dave: Some of the most unforgettable experiences were the ones we had playing for the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity parties (Loyola University of Los Angeles) especially the annual Christmas party up in the mountains. Our frat brothers were one of our biggest fans and we could certainly get them rockin'! Those were really crazy times.

Mark: My favorite experience was the party we played at in a friend's backyard on Longden Avenue in Arcadia, California while his parents were out of town. It was huge! Cars were parked for blocks in every direction. The cops came. It made the local newspaper. There was an elevated band stand that let us tower over the crowd. Bob Santana double-drummed with Tim a la Allman Brothers. People held their cigarette lighters aloft as they swayed to the music. What a night!

Ken: Our Longden Avenue gig stands out for me. The crowd was huge, the stage immense and the sound quality was surreal. But, I also fondly recall our acoustic jam sessions at small Loyola campus parties or in a stairwell. Another fun memory was when we played all-50’s tunes at Loyola’s “Bird’s Nest” under the pseudonym “Frankie and the Invaders,” featuring guest lead singer and frontman, Frank Adelman.

Tim: Like others have mentioned, my friend John Chapman had a huge backyard and decided to throw a "ripper". We borrowed a stage from Arcadia High School and added Bob Santana to the mix to simulate The Doobies and Allman Bros. Police estimated 800 people came and for me, it felt like the real deal! Another is when we played for a Loyola frat party and the hard rock band that "opened" for us played "Smoke on the Water", which was still new at that time. They killed it and I thought "we are going to get booed off the stage". But we didn't and all ended well, I think...

So what triggered you guys to get back together after over 40 years?

Mark: The Covid-19 lockdown left me with a lot of extra time on my hands. I started playing my guitars more than usual, but making music by myself really wasn't scratching the musical itch. I thought that surely someone has figured out how to make music with others online. After a little research, I found some platforms on the Internet that allow you to do that. I needed others to participate. So, I started going down my mental list of musician friends. I knew I could count on Tim. We had remained in touch over the years. But I needed others with musical talent who had the patience and desire to play remotely. I remembered that Ken had been interested in recording and liked technology, which fit perfectly with what I had in mind. So, after a very brief Internet search, I located Ken through his firm's web site. On Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 2:01 PM EST, I fired off an email to him with the subject heading, "It's time for band practice." He responded right away and we started experimenting with different online options. Tim and Dave came up in our conversations almost immediately. A few months later, Ken was able to find Dave and that, happily, completed the circle. Although we are spread out across the country over three time zones (California, Texas, Maryland, and Georgia) technology has allowed us to resume playing music together after all these years.

Ken: I was so happy to receive Mark's email in the early stage of the 2020 Covid lock-down. I had been spending my spare time learning to use Logic Pro digital audio workspace software (“DAW”), with the goal of creating and recording music, both solo and with my wife Janet (who has a much better voice!). After reconnecting, Mark and I experimented with several live musical performance websites, but with more than 2,000 miles between us, even connecting at the speed of light there was a distracting and unavoidable signal lag that made singing live unfulfilling. When Mark then discovered SoundTrap’s amazing remote DAW recording site, we reached out to Dave and Tim and rekindled our “Montana” band and our heartfelt friendships. Despite a 40+ year hiatus, we picked up where we left off and began recording songs to share with our families and friends. We hope that you enjoy them as much as we’ve enjoyed creating them.

Tim: Mark and I reconnected a few years back and reunited in 2019 with the original Stampede band to play for Bob Santana's Anniversary. Bob was our drummer. We also resurrected Masty and played some of our old favorites. After that, Mark reached out to me about getting Montana back together virtually and the rest is history! I hope to be able to spend more time collaborating with my old pals.