Music Scene International: Bell

  [Andy]  [Vanessa]  [Sue]  [Damon]

Andy Miller

My name's Andy Miller and when I'm not playing church organ on the street corner, or shopping for corrugated fasteners, I'm playing in BELL. I'm a total musician nerd—it's my way of communicating and I have a hard time expressing myself in any other way.

Andy's school pics - perfect for your wallet I've played the drums since I was 10 and have been in about fifteen different bands. The first on was called The Reekers. We didn't play anything, we just sang Beatle songs and pretended to be them. Then we broke into playing actual instruments. My first set of drums consisted of: 1 16" Rubbermaid Bass Drum. (Upside down garbage can) and a 14" Masking Snare (old snare drum with tape stretched across it). All played with two hand selected kindling sticks. The first guitar experience was a ukulele with a Radio Shack mic stuck in the sound hole, played through the stereo on full volume. Distortion.

So it evolved through the years until one day I was in the studio, with my band Foot of the Head, and I met Vanessa with her old band. She told me she had an awesome "Ukulele." I told her I had a bitchin' "Rubbermaid" and that I liked her style of playing. So I got kicked out of my band so that I could start one with her. Then we decided a bass player would be good so I got my friend Chris (Chris 1, for BELL historians) who had been in 8 of my previous bands. He said, "Uuhh, Hmm, Uuhh, maybe," and BELL was born. Then we thought--if only Vanessa had four arms, or another guitarist… So Damon (who was only in two of my previous bands) came from Olympia and played with us.

A few days later we made an album and it turned out great, but Chris No. 1 decided the experience was far too great so he left. So we found Chris Livesay (Chris 2) who we had admired in his previous band, Crush Velour, and asked him to jump into the expanding, fast moving forklift called BELL.

So then all I needed was some good equipment and, since Rubbermaid doesn't do endorsements, I hooked up with Al Adinolphi, who made me the drums I always wanted.