The Quakes story is a long story full of boring facts and non sequiturs, so
this is a condensed version for the internet.If you have any questions about specifics, you can e-mail us.

Basically The Quakes started in the fall of 1986.I was back from my second unsuccessful trip to London to try to start a band. I called Rob Peltier who
saw Dave The Ace Hoy and myself playing at a party (we were the Quiffs.)
I told him my plan for world domination and we started practicing.We needed
a drummer and we were reluctant to use Dave because he was about four
years younger than me and this was going to be a “serious” band.In the end,
we (thankfully) had him join us.

In the beginning we were playing modern rockabilly in the vein of our idols
the Stray-Rock and Pole- cats. We had huge quiffs and wore bright clothes
and make-up like our idols. The only problem was, we couldn’t play our
instruments very well and we didn’t come close to the sound we envisioned
in our heads. Undeterred, we went on but found it hard to get gigs and be
noticed in our home of Buffalo,New York.

There was a big punk scene in Buffalo at that time and we noticed that these
kids liked our faster stuff.We started getting harder and we ditched the pegs
and bowling shirts for combat boots and ripped jeans. Things started to happened for us locally.

We knew a little bit about the scene in Europe and sent demos to Nervous records.We got a negative but encouraging response.We decided we were
going to pull a “Stray Cats” and sell all our stuff and move to London.

We arrived in the fall of 1987.We contacted Nervous records and as luck would
have it, Roy Williams told us that The Rattlers had canceled out of a psycho
fest in Belgium and we could have the spot. We were blown away by the scene.
There was about 4000 psychos from all over Europe in Weize, Belgium and that
was our first European gig. We were out of tune and we had arrived late
but it seemed to go down good.

Upon returning to England, we were stopped at the boarder and they deported
us because we didn’t have work permits. We returned and didn’t know what to do next so we booked some local shows.
It was hard being back so soon after we basically told everyone that
“this town sucks and were moving to London.” Our ship came in when we got an offer to do a tour of Belgium and Germany supporting the Coffin Nails.

During the time leading up to our tour, Rob quit the band so enter
Chris Van Cleve who I went to school with and who had played drums in an
earlier band “The Quiffs.”We put Chris on drums and Dave switched to bass
(note; all of the Quakes play slap bass!)We went over and did the tour but it
wasn’t the same because we had a short time to break in this new line up.

When the tour was over Dave and I stayed in Europe and convinced Rob to
re join as Nervous records was interested in doing a record. When Rob arrived
in London we only had a week to rehearse before the recording and we weren't really ready in hindsight.We were living in a squat in east London surviving on peanut butter and jelly and spagetti.We started playing around London and it
was during this time that we made our debut at the Klubfoot on
June 5 1988.

The record came out and there were big plans for a tour of Europe.The tour never happened....we were literally waiting for the van to
pick us up and it never came.The whole thing is still a mystery as to what happened.....anyway we drove each other nuts living in that small flat
(it didn’t occur to us to get jobs!) The tour thing was the last straw for Dave
& Rob who were 17 and 19 years old at the time (I was 21),so they quit and
went back to Buffalo. I decided to stay and try to start a new band.

Upon his return to Buffalo,Dave the Ace was killed when he was struck by a
car while crossing a highway. The news was very sad for all of us and he is
greatly missed.

I had a thing in London called Paul Roman and the Prowlers with Nick Peck on
bass from the Rattlers. We gigged around London and then we did a small fest in
Belgium. When we came back to the UK,I got stopped at the boarder again and again I was deported!

Plans were in the works for me to do a solo record and I had actually started recording before I got kicked out.When I got back to Buffalo, we put the “band”
back together to do some shows before I could return to England (this time with a work permit.) This line up was Rob and I with Chris Van Cleve on rhythm guitar
and one of Robs old band mates on drums.

In London, I soon found that all my plans had fallen through with the record
label (which will remain unnamed.) So...there I was hanging out in London squatting with nothing to do. I ran into Ant Thomas from Demented Are Go in the laundry mat, turns out we lived in the same nieghborhood.Ant told me that Lex, the guitarist had quit the band and they had a bunch of gigs booked.
I filled in and did a bunch of gigs around England. It was a lot of fun but I had my
own thing and wanted to continue that.

I returned to Buffalo in the fall of 1989 and I got an apartment with Rob.We decided to put the Quakes back together. I think at first we had Chris on drums, he has been in and out of the band so many times its not funny. We then recruited Brian Doran who went to school with Rob, to play drums. We played at the first and second Big Rumbles (the good ones) in England and did some small tours before recording Voice of America in June of 1990. We did a lot of shows locally and around our area during this time.

We had a big fest coming up in Germany and a short tour to follow in the spring of 1991 Shortly before departing, Brian said he couldn’t go ...Chris was back in the band.

Things started happening in the months that followed. We were contacted by
a Japanese company who wanted to bring us over for a tour based on our strong record sales. Planet records in Japan then contracted with us to do a live Cd from Tokyo. We had a great time in Japan and shortly thereafter we were contacted by Sony records in Japan and plans were made to do a new album
and a big tour.

New Generation was recorded in 1992 and released in the spring of 1993. We
did a 13 show tour of Japan and it was by far the pinnacle of our success. The album sold well in Japan and at that time we were trying to crossover into other markets.We were trying to be a little more melodic(by this time, we knew how to play our instruments!)but later in the year the album was licensed to Nervous and a lot of our European fans did not like it.

When we returned from Japan in the spring of 93...Chris quit the band again. During the next few years we had a series of drummers none of which are worth mentioning by name. We did festivals and local shows but we never did find a permanent drummer.

In 1995 we recorded our fourth studio album “Quiff Rock.”We returned to our roots and stripped down the production.We played a few festivals but by this time the band was over. We couldn’t find the right drummer. I moved to Phoenix AZ and Rob joined the Irving Klaws.

Some time went by and we decided to continue the Quakes but in a limited way by playing at one or two festivals a year. We did a few festivals and things were cool until Chris quit about ten days before a trip to Finland. We got Richie from The Nitros (who is a true professional) and did the gigs with about an hours worth of semi acoustic rehearsal. The shows were ok but they weren't our usual performance and we felt that we let the fans down. It might have been worse if we had canceled the shows on such short notice.

Chris was back in and we were back on our two show a year schedule:-). In the summer of 2000...Rob quit so Chris and I got Mark Burke from the Phantom Rockers to do the American rumble in New Jersey on Halloween weekend.

In January 2001 we started work on a new album which we recorded in Las Vegas with Mike Sak with whom we did New Generation and Quiff rock with.The album took seven months to finish because of the logistics and because we started our own record label and had to do everything ourselves (well worth it.)
Last of the human beings was released in October of 2001 on our new label Orrexx records.

In 2002,we played several shows in Buffalo and went to Germany. In May of 2003, we headlined the American nightmare fest in Pomona ,CA. In July we played at the Calella fest in Spain and then did a five show tour of Finland.

In December 2003, we played a gig in Buffalo with Rob Peltier on bass.This was Robs first gig with us in 3 years and was most likely the last time that the
three of us will perform together as he is not interested to play in The Quakes anymore.

In February 2004, I moved to Finland and put a new band together called The Paul Roman 3.The band has two great musicians from Helsinki.Mika Railo on slap bass and Slim Salminen on drums. We were doing mostly Quakes songs from all albums and a few new ones in the same style.

In the summer of 2004, The Paul Roman 3 did a total of 25 shows in Finland,Russia, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
In October 2004, The Quakes headlined the Wreckers ball 2 in Hollywood.
Lauri Valkonen from the Finnish band 9 Lives was flown in to play bass.

In January 2005, The Paul Roman 3 did a couple of shows in the Ukraine. The entire trip was videotaped by a company there and might be released as a documentary.The newest line up featured Aki Savolainen on bass and Tommi Hänninen of The Nine Lives on drums.

In June of 2005,The Quakes played a few shows in California with The Nine Lives from Finland.

In December 2005 The Quakes 6th studio album “Psyops” was released.The album was done in pieces in Phoenix,Las Vegas and in Finland.The album proved to be a hit with fans combining new wave with psychobilly.

2006 was a big year for The Quakes. It has been 20 years since the band started. A US tour was planned- something The Quakes had never done before. In June an 18 show west coast tour and in August, a 16 show east coast tour.Before the east coast tour, Chris Van Cleve had to drop out because of personal problems. Kevin O’ Conner from the 7 Shot Screamers stepped in and did an amazing job. The Quakes then did 23 shows in Europe in October featuring Tommi Hänninen on drums.

In 2007 The Quakes re released the album Quiff Rock which was originally on Tombdisc records. The new release has 8 extra songs and extended liner notes. The cd is on Orrexx Records.
In the fall of 07,There was two new additions to the ever changing Quakes roster.Kenny Hill on slap bass and Mike Minnick on drums.The band did a short southwest tour of the USA. In October of 07, The Quakes will return to Europe for a month long tour with Chris Van Cleve taking over the drums. To be continued....

STICK TO YOUR GUNS!

HOME | NEWS | BIO | CD’S | PIX | PROFILES | MERCH | LINKS | CONTACT