The Sun Kings are:

Drew Harrison: Vocals, Guitars, Percussion

Michael Barrett: Vocals, Keyboards, Guitars

Bill Zupko : Lead Guitar, Vocals

Peter LoMenzo: Vocals, Bass

Steve Scarpelli: Drums, Percussion, Vocals

Drew Harrison: Vocals, Guitars, Percussion

"Yer Blues"
Drew honing his vocal technique, age 1.

Drew’s new solo album “Go It Alone” now available! 

My first vivid memory was rocking back and forth on my hands and knees, in front of our large Motorola stereo/TV console, to the song "A Hard Days Night".  I was three years old.  We lived in Forest Hills, New York, near Shea Stadium.  I can still recall the traffic in our neighborhood as people went off to see the Beatles perform there. The Beatles were the ambient soundtrack of my early years, as I remember visiting relatives' homes, or riding in the car listening to them on the radio.  In hindsight, it was incredible subliminal musical propaganda.

At eight, I was shuffled off to recreation school in New Jersey.  We would play sports outside and work arts and crafts afterwards in a room called the Quiet Room. We were working on making lanyards for whistles one day, when our long- haired teaching assistant, named Neil put this new LP on the little phonograph. It was the White Album. I don't recall hearing the first cut - Back in the USSR, but the second - Dear Prudence, floored me. I kept asking for it to be played over and having dropped all interest in lanyards, took up a position in front of the phonograph. I was mesmerized, captivated and adopted ‘Prudence' as my official song. For the rest of summer school I couldn't wait to get back into the Quiet Room and listen to it. 

I found books and John Lennon’s solo albums in my adolescence. It is not a stretch to say his early solo material provided a guidance and philosophy with which I live my life today. I listened objectively, wrote the lyrics out at school, and by 15 years old ‘Imagine' was my favorite song. I have played it every New Year’s Eve since then as a reminder of what life could be like. That was then….

Presently, I have just released (June 2006) my solo acoustic CD called “Go It Alone”.  It’s available at all Sun Kings’ shows and online.

Ah yes, The Sun Kings, back to the Beatles, singing that nursery rhyme ‘Prudence' still.  It's never lost its charm.  It's great working with Michael, Peter, Bill and Steve who are passionate about being true to the Beatles’ recordings, and reaching to capture that vibe in the music that for some inexplicable reason moved, and continues to move, so many of us.  We’re not out to be cheap imitators, nor does anyone take themselves so seriously in the process. We work hard at it ‘cause we dig it.  Giving the music its due in performance is important to us.  I also have to give kudos to Erich and Jennifer – two very cool people - now working with the band.  As friends, and as assistants to the band, they’re fantastic.

“And in the end…”  We appreciate all the folks that come out to listen and join in.      

Michael Barrett: Vocals, Keyboards, Guitars

"It Won't be Long"
Michael at 13, displaying mastery of the C chord on his first electric guitar.

The Sun Kings are the second Beatles cover band I've joined. I formed my first one in February 1964, on the playground of the school where I attended 2nd grade. The Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan had overnight, taken the nation by storm. We lived less than 90 miles from New York City at the time, and everybody at school, radio and TV was talking about them. Within the week, a kid at school brought the singles of 'She Loves You' and 'I Want to Hold your Hand', and played them on our classroom's record player for show and tell. That was it for me. I hounded my Mom into buying me those same two singles, and I quickly recruited my own version of the Fab Four. At recess the schoolyard became our stage, where we'd belt out Beatles songs with off key gusto while the lads played air guitar. I got to be Ringo, and had the only tangible instrument; rocks of varying sizes arranged in a semicircle around me. I sat on the ground singing along, tapping away at the rocks with a pair of twigs. Very Flintstones.

After scoring some initial playground success the band soon drifted apart, the attention span of a 7 year old being what it is. With the flood of new Beatles' releases in the spring of 1964, it was just too hard to keep up. By the time the Beatles played Shea Stadium, our family had moved back to California. Soon after, music and everything else took a back seat to an all consuming passion for baseball.

At age 11, my parents gave me a stereo cassette recorder for Christmas, along with cassettes of Magical Mystery Tour and the following year, the White Album. Even at that age there was no question in my mind that these guys had progressed a long way since 'She Loves You'. That summer I read Hunter Davies' bio on the Beatles and that was when the music bug resurfaced and bit hard. At 12, I got my first guitar, a Stella nylon string acoustic (the sadistic Stella) handed down from my Uncle Kevin, and a Mel Bay chord book. I also became a huge Beatles fan just in time for the releases of Yellow Submarine and Abbey Road, the Paul is dead furor (I bought the 'ghoulish' magazine so disparaged in Peter Brown's book), John and Paul's marriages, and John and Yoko's antics du jour. Then came the sadness of the band's breakup, so soon after I had come back to the fold, and the kiss-off 'Let it Be'. It was a tough time to be a Beatles fan, but I took consolation in Led Zeppelin and liked it just fine.

By age 13, I'd graduated to an electric guitar and at 15, began to pick out music on keyboards when my Dad bought a used Wurlitzer organ from his brother. At Monta Vista high school in Cupertino, California I put together a rock power trio called (don't laugh) Crystal Mist. We played innumerable kegger parties and school dances. Eventually the trio became a foursome. When our second guitarist joined, I rented a transistorized keyboard that bleated out horrible imitations of piano and organ. Armed with this sad contraption, I took up keyboards on stage in addition to guitar. That has remained my role in every band since, although the keyboards have improved. When Crystal Mist fizzled, I briefly sang with a band called Crossroads. From there I was invited to join Stardust, a semi-popular San Jose based band that worked constantly. I played with them from late 1978 until early 1982, gigging all over Northern California. During that time, the band set up a 4 track recording space in our rehearsal room, and I became fascinated with the recording process.

Stardust's luster eventually faded, and I took some years off from performing to attend school, assembling some home recording equipment and gaining experience. I played with a variety of Top-40 bands in the mid-Eighties that mostly left a bitter aftertaste. It drove me back into the recording studio where I didn't emerge for three years, absorbing all I could learn about MIDI and digital audio.

So now it has come back full circle, with an interest even keener than in 1964, and real instruments to boot. Beatles music has achieved classic status, and interest in them is as strong as ever. It's an interest that recaptures us every time we hear one of their songs. They remain a happily irresistible force, filling our sails with a joyful sound that time does not diminish. Thank you for everything, John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Bill Zupko : Lead Guitar, Vocals

"Here Comes the Sun "
Bill, age 4, learns how a guitar or most anything resembling one can get a guy noticed.

The manner in which I gradually became acquainted with the Beatles was somewhat unique. Around ’63 or ’64, as a little lad living on a military base near Tokyo, everyone began noticing that these four identical-looking guys with impossibly long hair were appearing on the covers of magazines with increasing regularity. They obviously were not just another run-of- the-mill group. At the time the Beatles got no air time on Armed Forces Radio or Japanese stations, so for many months I had absolutely no idea how their music sounded! When we first rotated back to “The States” I spent a couple of weeks enduring my cousin’s (that’s her in the photo) around-the-clock fanatical raving about the Beatles. Fast forward to a year later in Tucson, Arizona, lo and behold, the Beatles cartoon show made its debut. Since every episode featured a few Beatles songs, I was at last able to get a satisfying dose of their music!

At school nearly every kid I knew was habitually speaking with a bad English accent and playing air guitar. At this time I started violin lessons (bet you didn’t see that coming), which were to continue for some years. My fourth-grade teacher bought everyone in class—with her own money, bless her heart—a ukulele. She taught us chords and we had a ball singing corny songs. The experience would prove helpful when I soon took up the guitar. Until the end of high school I played guitar on and off, but went on to play mainly clarinet and sax, dabbled in most other band instruments, and played in many excellent concert bands, orchestras, and smaller ensemble groups, both classical and jazz…and certainly had plenty of adventures!

I was finally and completely immersed in the Beatles in ’75 as my friend Brian (a stellar sax man) and I spent the entire summer listening to every Beatles album. Until then I had pretty much missed most everything after “Help.” I was quite impressed, and gained a respect for George Martin’s contributions in particular. It was surprising that I recognized so many of the songs from someone else’s car radio, and my usual refrain was: “I didn’t know the Beatles did that!” Sadly, the Beatles as a group was history and without much more than a Wings concert tour to look forward to, I passed out of this second passionate Beatles “phase,” but not before learning many of their songs on the guitar, especially the acoustic (“unplugged”) songs.

In ’94 for the first time I experienced early-era Beatles music played live by a band called the Termites, and I sensed the same excitement of Hamburg or the Cavern Club! By ‘97 I was playing in the all-Beatles band Ticket to Ride, my first rock band. We have played innumerable memorable shows, mostly in San Francisco. Nowadays, what with other personal and professional commitments, it’s gotten hard for us to gather in one place at one time. So one can say I was in the right place at the right time when the opportunity arose to play with the Sun Kings!

The classic music of the Beatles—from silly love songs, to clamoring rockers, to brilliantly inspirational masterpieces—was instrumental in transforming rock into a social phenomenon, and the rest is history. That even the very young are still learning the Beatles’ songs speaks volumes for the enduring greatness of their music. The honor of playing their music for nearly a decade with a string of talented musicians in the Bay Area has definitely been good for my soul. And now that I’ve been fortunate enough to join with fellow devotees Drew, Michael, Peter and Steve, and most important, all of you faithful Beatles fans, I look forward to sharing many good times with you all.

Peter LoMenzo: Vocals, Bass

"Oh! Darling"
Peter, age 1, wishing that the guitar in his hand was a Rickenbacker.

I invaded the shores of the US (via child birth) right around the same time as The Beatles. At the ripe old age of 6 months, I was singing along with Paul on "All My Loving" (although it was more likely that I was just screaming for a bottle). However, my story is that I was singing along and I am sticking to that.

Seriously, my "relationship" with the Beatles really and truly goes back as far as I do. There was never a time in my life where their influence (both musically and otherwise) hasn't affected my life. I can remember that "P.S. I Love You" was the first Beatles song I remember hearing on the car radio (around 1965). To this day, every time I hear that song, it's sounds just as fresh as it did to that 2 year old kid. I toddled over (with a little help from me mum) to E.J. Korvette department store on Shore Pkwy in Brooklyn, NY and got Revolver in 1966. This was the same store where I got many subsequent Beatles releases through 1980, when they closed.

I always knew I wanted to be a Beatle, but knowing that the position was never going to open up, I just tried to interject as much "Beatle" as I could (Paul, in particular) into whatever gig I did. The musical journey began in high school playing all the obligatory dances and auditorium shows. The band had the very original name of "Cover", because that's what we did: we covered The Beatles and most of the other big groups of the day. Stints followed with the likes of Seductive Luck, a very heavy metal band that somehow fit a fairly authentic version of Drive My Car into the set every night. Of the many Beatles songs we incorporated, our version of She's A Woman would usually bring the house down (as well as my vocal cords).

During this time (early to mid 80's), I was also busy doing 'hired gun' live gigs and session work around the NY/NJ area. I took great pleasure (as I still do) in stepping into various musical situations with little to no rehearsal and giving a note-perfect performance, be it on Bass, Keys, Guitar and/or Vocals. I worked with a host of musicians who went on to carve their niche in the industry. Groups such as White Lion, Rondinelli, Prophet and T.T. Quick (to name a few) associated themselves with me in one form or another at some point in time. Around 1986, I started and fronted a band called For Pete's Sake, who opened for many of the bigger bands in the NY metro area for the next 2 years. For you East Coasters, the main venues for these gigs were L'amour in Brooklyn and Art Stock's Playpen in New Jersey.

It was 1988 that For Pete's Sake morphed into The Swingin' Johnsons, which incorporated Beatles-inspired originals with the covers that we did. The wonderful thing about this band was that we could play just about any song that the audience could shout out AND that our sets used to include upwards to 20 Beatles songs a night.
I relocated to the state of California in the mid-nineties, and for the first time in my adult life, let music take a back seat for a while. A trip back east and a short "reunion tour" with the Johnson's once again got my juices flowing. After returning to the life of a hired gun for the better part of 2001-2003, I settled in with a fairly successful cover band called Hot Karma. We played all the places there were to play "North of the Golden Gate" but something was missing: No Beatle tunes. Something had to change.

Having worked professionally for just about 25 years, playing live and in the studio on every conceivable instrument, every conceivable size gig and in every conceivable genre of music one could imagine, I have finally been blessed in the fact that not only did I find my dream gig, I was fortunate enough to find these "lads", all of whom capture the musical expertise, energy and attitude that have made the Beatles a lasting part of my life to this day.

All The Best,
Pete

Steve Scarpelli: Drums, Percussion, Vocals

"All I've Got to Do"
7 year old Steve (center) improvises a drum set just in time to accompany the band to Hamburg.

At age 5 I was musically curious, absorbing pop tunes from a red Zenith transistor radio. In the early '60s, there were three Bay Area Top 40 radio stations, KYA, KFRC and my local KLIV in San Jose.

Why did I turn to drums as an outlet for the sounds beaming from my trusty red Zenith? I guess the Big Beat took hold of me and inspired me to emulate the magical mixture of rhythm, chordal structure and melody.

I played in my first band at age 7 with my sister and a neighbor. During grade school I developed a fairly steady beat by playing drums along with records, including all the Fab's releases. Beatles music was my foundation and Ringo my earliest influence, not only for his steady meter but also his gift for playing musical drums. Ringo's drumming taught me to play for the song, and to alter the drum part according to verse, chorus, bridge or coda. If a song calls for a lift, Ringo injects energy and drive (Long Tall Sally, She Loves You, Birthday). Conversely, a sad song reveals his emotional side (Rain, A Day In the Life, While my Guitar Gently Weeps). Some critics and 'serious' musicians belittle Ritchie's beat. I hear an intuitive artist who plays with subtlety and emotion.

From the '70s through the '90s I played in several amateur bands, none of which achieved any distinction. Still, I had fun while learning a valuable lesson: Music is its own reward. Ringo offered a similar attitude toward drumming, stating that if the Beatles had not reached stardom, he would have played in some little pub band.

I learned to play drums in several musical styles, like jazz, blues, progressive rock and reggae. Now as a member of the Sun Kings, it's like a musical homecoming for me. It seems my musical journey began and returns again to the Beatles!

2006 begins my second year in the drummer's seat. I wish I could have joined the group a lot sooner! There were more than a few interesting performances last year; some early morning risers and near all-nighters. Having fulfilled an impressive schedule of gigs, I fell like a veteran now, especially since I'm no longer "the new guy".

Drumming in my previous bands was fun, but nothing compares to the immediate audience acceptance I've found in the Sun Kings. I'm amazed and thankful that people still dig Beatles music. A tip of the Lennon cap to the Sun Kings fans, whose positive feedback I really appreciate. I promise to smile a little more in '06.

Sincerely,
Steve