Gray Wolf
Band: Gray Wolf
Members: Mark Sutherland, guitar; Guy Partin, bass, guitar, keyboards, lead vocals and backing vocal; Darryl Bughman, drums; Kenny Staller, lead vocals
Who we talked to: Sutherland
How did your name come about? We're all older so we were practicing one time, of course we needed a name, and we said, "Well, we all have gray hair so perhaps we should have gray in it." Then someone said, "how about Gray Wolf," and it just kind of popped out. We thought it was cool because it kind of sounds like rock 'n' roll.
You guys have a pretty full schedule. Does it ever get tiring? We're playing every weekend from (September) to the end of the year. We are a band that loves to play live. It never got old for us.
How long have you been playing together? We've been together as a band for two years. We've had some lineup changes. We've been together as Gray Wolf for two years.
How did you guys get together? Kenny Staller, our lead vocalist, called me up. We were friends from way back in the day. He was starting a new project and called me to see if I was interested. We knew we had a good mix of guys.
Describe your sound: We are rock 'n' roll. We are the purest sense of rock and 'n' roll in that we do a lot of Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and Bad Company. All classic rock. We do some modern rock 'n' roll. We do enough just to let the younger crowd know that, hey, because we are older we can play this music.
What modern artists do you listen to? We do a Nickelback tune and we do 3 Doors Down.
Do you model yourselves after any band? There's nothing new under the sun. We are kind of a throw-off of Aerosmith. We're a very, very visual band. We kind of laugh because we have a combined age of over 200, but we can still play as hard as if we were 18 years old. It's really a band you have to see to appreciate.
What song(s) do you love to cover? "Fire Woman" from The Cult.
How do you factor in practice time? We all have jobs that we do. We practice very rarely. We play enough that we don't really have to practice. It's a low-maintenance band. We are all seasoned musicians.
What is your take on the music scene in York? Things have changed in the music industry, especially locally. It is tough. The money is not there like it used to be back in the mid-'80s. There's still a lot of places to play, but we have found that you have to go out. You've got to go out farther than the York area. The music industry here locally is tough right now.
Best local place to play: Believe it or not, we like to go to Zingers down in Dallastown.
Do you guys play a lot of benefit shows? We're a very biker-friendly band because it seems like bikers love our music. We agreed when we put this project together that we would do at least two or three benefits at no charge. Gray Wolf is not about the money. It really is about playing live. We still can't get enough of playing out even after all these years.
What are your goals for the band? Play bigger clubs, nicer clubs. We're now talking about getting some representation. We've thought about doing an album. In the back of our minds, and believe this or not at our age, you never lose sight of the fact maybe you'll write that hit song one day.
Shoutouts: We just want to say hey to everyone in York County. We want to shout out to everyone out there to continue to support local music and live music.
- ERIN McCRACKEN, FLIPSIDE STAFF