A Brief History of Dirty Dogz

A high energy rock band

As told by Eric Beech (drummer)

As we're sure that with most bands with any longevity , a novel could be written about Dirty Dogz. Over the years there have been many highs, a few lows, good times as well as bad. In a sense, it's much like a family. Although some of us go way back, further than the origin of this band, we shall start at a place which directly led to the formation of and evolution of Dirty Dogz. This will be a very abridged history, so as not to get too long winded.

In the beginning, Ron and Billy came out of a band to form their own musical odyssey, Three Cool Cats (named after an obscure, little known Beatles song) with drummer Ernie Schnitsler. After about a year, the decision was made to get a front man. Ron and Billy happened into a local club one evening to check out the Karaoke scene. There they saw Rusty Speicher. He was entertaining and he was a pretty good singer as well. After a short one night audition, Rusty was asked to join the band. This addition made a subtle change in the direction of the music. A name change was in order. Dirty Dogs was brought to the table and it stuck. Ernie had always had the name of his band on his bass drum head using stick-on mail box letters. There was a problem. He had no S's. He did, however have a Z and from that point on, it was Dirty Dogz. It was April, 1998.

Ernie was a truck driver by trade and couldn't commit to all the bands play dates. A new drummer was needed to fill the roster. Ron knew Eric from previous bands and asked him to fill the void. At the time, Eric had been retired from drumming for about ten years and had his own business as a cabinet maker. He reluctantly joined in August of 1998 and the band was once again complete.

Before long, Dirty Dogz was steadily playing four to seven nights a week. It was soon apparent that the work load was too great for anyone with a day job. We then became four self-employed musicians and a partnership was formed. The goal was to take the band as far as it would go. First on the agenda was a CD. Released in September of 2000, "Unleashed", as it was titled, sold over one thousand copies. Not bad, we thought, since most of the sales were from our local base of Somerset, a small town of about 7,000 people in southwestern Pennsylvania. We promoted the CD anywhere and everywhere we could. We occasionally opened for national and local recording acts, hoping to get our foot in the door. Knowing that there were literally thousands of other band trying to do the same thing, and that our chances where slim, we took to the road and went to L.A. We shot a video and marketed our CD to the music industry. The labels that had been presented our material, all passed. We were told that our stuff was good, but we had too many different types of music going on. The bands they look for have one particular sound that is identifiable to that band or that type of band. That's not us. We thrive on versatility. While not totally giving up on the dream, we would continue to play our gigs and make our living with a new CD in our collective head.

October, 2005, Rusty left the band. The rest of us wanted to continue, but our front man left some big shoes to fill. At the last minute, Ron and Billy contacted Linda Teets, who had sung with us many times for fun on Jam Nite (every Tuesday at a local club, we host a night where everyone who wants to, can get up and sing or play with us). She's a natural and again, the roster is complete. We're still rockin'.

Come out and see us. We'll do our best to make sure that you have a good time. Watch the News Section for updates on what's going on with the band!