| This Is The Ditchwater Bio Page! | |
 |
THE SAGA OF DITCHWATER SHALL NOW BE TOLD
I, Herbie, have always loved music and I always will. My fondest memories revolve around songs! So what more of a natural thing can happen? I become a musician! I knew Lip, Clint to everybody else, since I was born, but about 1987 he moved to Texas. Low and behold he moves back in 2000. We hung out for a while and then we both realized that we were all about the music and things started. Ditchwater started sometime around the winter of 2001. I bought a set of drums pretty cheap and offered to put them in Lip's attic if he would start jammming with me. He said he hadn't played a set of drums for probably 15 years but he'd try it out. So we crawled up to what is now dubbed "Jamroom" and started what is now known as "Ditchwater". I had been jamming with Lip in his attic for a couple of months, with him on the drums and me on the guitar, when I started working with Louis at Pic-A-Dilly. I talked to Lou about playing music all the time at work and this grew into a great friendship. We started hangin' out together a lot and I asked him to come sit in with me and Lip. He accepted and the ball started rolling. We all started jamming in what is now dubbed "JAMROOM" and the name search began. We were kickin' around everything. We were using brand names, household shit, common names , you know anything. It didn't matter because we were on the search. Still without a name we would practice anytime we could; morning, noon, or, night! And let me tell you it was some good times breaking in the jamroom!!! Half the time we have been up there I don't remember a damn thing! That's the reason we record everything up there. You never know what you will miss, but anyway, we were looking for a name. Lip was at my house one night and we were watching "CHEERS" on TV. Cliff's mom was talking about Woody and Cliff both being her boys and she said, "That's my boys. Both dumb as ditchwater." When she said that we looked at each other and both said "DITCHWATER!" Out of no where it had came to us! We had been kicking around different names forever and instantally the search was over. We now had a name! Now for the sound.
We knew we wanted to be different, but we really didn't know how we were going to be all at the same time so we just jammed. After awhile our sound just evolved itself. Before we knew it we had songs and people were asking us what kind of music we played and all we could say was that it was "Rock 'N' Roll". We didn't hold back any kind of songs we had come up with!! It didn't matter what kind of song it was: Metal, Ballad, Punk, Classic Rock, Alt, etc....We played it!!! It was genre defying!!! We did a few shows here and there, the whole time we were practicing our asses off. We ended up with a lot of good stories and one hell of a catalog of tunes. Then we hit some rough waters. After a long stint of myself having an illness for three months and Lou planning to move to Troy, Mo we had hit a dead end. Due to Louis' moving hiatus and a three month or more stray from the schedule we had started to let go of the ball. Nobody was ready for this but we had to forge on. Right before all of this we had started to hang out with this guy, Micheal, that my girlfriend worked with. I told him one night while we were partying that he needed to start playin bass for the band. He said he had played guitar for awhile but had never played the bass. I told him it was pretty much the same thing. I think it wasn't even a month later we were on our way to Guitar Center to buy him a bass and by this time he was already dubbed "GH" our bass player. THE BALL WAS ROLLING ONCE AGAIN!!! GH
By this time it was just the three of us; GH, Lip , and myself "Herbie", Lou had moved to Troy full time by then. This was the first time we had started jamming full time with a bass player and it made the sound evolve even more then before! We were loving it but we were missing the vocals. I asked Lip and GH if they minded if my old friend, Shaun Hopkins, sat in on some vocals for awhile. Nobody minded so we started down that path of the Ditchwater saga. We jammed with Hop for a good few months when we decided we wanted to do a show. It was a last second we idea set up in 22 hours and about a dozen people showed up!!! It was cool though. We had fun and so did the people and I guess that is all that matters. Hopkins
Not to long after that we hit some pretty rough waters again. This time in a different way, words were said, and ways were parted. One week later almost to the day, Hop calls us up and says that we got a gig at the FORGOT festival. We all decided to let bygones be bygones and we ended up playing one of the best shows we ever did. Tention within the band was still running high after FORGOT because things were not actually forgotten and we realized all this time we were starting to turn into a "straight up metal band". We were never ones to be defined by one genre so we dissolved "Ditchwater" into two entities now known as "Ditchwater" and "MASTYPH", the latter being the metal band of course. Not all were happy with this idea at first but they all warmed up to it and the ball was once again rolling. As the ball was rolling we didn't really know where it was going. So we just started jammin our balls of. We pushed around the idea of me starting to sing for months, well at least I did, then I actually started doing it. When that happened the PHEONIX ROSE FROM THE ASHES!!!! We started hammering out new stuff left and right and the next thing you know... we have shitloads of songs. I started putting lyrics with songs and we were off again. Me and GH started playing anywhere with anybody and this started a new found insperation for us. We also steal whoever's songs we play with , so remember that when you strap up with us. HA!!! We have brought back some of our old songs and mixed them with some new material and things are looking good. We are doing all genres of music again. Everything from rock to ballad to metal; ALL GENRES! We don't give a shit! If it feels good to us you WILL hear it!!!!! We are rocking a three piece sound with some of our brothers standin' in every now and again and we are kicking ass and taking names . It's awesome! We are pretty much metal right now but why not? I have even stepped up to the mic and sing (if that's what you to call it) half the songs! Wow, Herbie sings! It's a trip ain't it! Well the story isn't over yet...it's actually just beginning. Herbie
We now have almost 25 originals and countless instrumentals and cover tunes ready to go. We are pulling out songs from the beginning to songs that were written yesterday. A variety of tunes are a plenty!!! We have THREE un-official members of the group so far to and it seems to be expanding! So get ready for the "DITCHWATER REVOLUTION" cause it's a comin'. WE ARE READY!!! ARE YOU?!?!
TO BE CONTINUED... |
